The New York Times has started an innovative new daily video feature called "TimesCast". the idea is that the viewer gets to see a glimpse into the news room and meetings as the paper's staff briefly run through the big stories of the new day.

This at first seems kind of neat until you actually watch it and realize it's actually sort of boring. Newspaper journalists aren't necesarily the most interesting on-camera personalities, and most of the segments are not adding any extra information or juicy behind-the-scenes, making-of angle to the stories. Where's the staffers arguing about whether a story should really be covered? Where's the editor relegating some writer's hard work to page 23 at the last minute?

In a sense, TimesCast is like the opposite of Truth On The Line. Instead of using a fictional narrative and characters to add new interest to an issue, The NYT is taking some interesting reporting and writing and making it LESS interesting with some dull personalities.