Friday’s Video Views

This week’s edition of Video Views features David Pogue crooning about his iPhone, a clip on one remedy to bolster print newspaper readership, USA Today‘s Jon Swartz at his first SXSWi conference, and a fresh old look at unintended acceleration.

Here’s a sobering perspective of newspaper demographics and a potential remedy for preserving readership. (HT @steveouting) The idea of newspaper content as a more accurate reflection of reader demos may be catching on as this piece from Online Journalism Review affirms.

Apple aficionado David Pogue works out his vocal chords (to our considerable chagrin) in this musical paean to the iPhone recorded (cinema verité style) at the Ragan Communications’ Social Media for Communicators conference at Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, Ga. — Feb. 23, 2010. This probably won’t do much to quell allegations of Mr. Pogue’s unusually strong affections for the products of one particular Cupertino company, in spite of residing in the majority.

Instead of acres and acres of products like CES, here it’s “acres and acres of people with ideas,” Jon Swartz, technology reporter for USA Today, commenting on his first SXSWi conference and how his employer hopes to compete with more nimble digital media.

When CBS “60 Minutes” did a story on the problem of unattended acceleration in Audi automobiles, it sent the German automaker’s sales into a tailspin. This was in 1987 when Audi and its PR firm had no other recourse than the mainstream media — earned and paid — to get its POV across. Yet, here’s a video Audi produced at the time featuring legendary race car driver Bobby Unser advocating on its behalf. Too bad YouTube was still two decades away.

Just when we thought it was safe to own a foreign automobile, we get this: