Video? Me?

Dear Auntie Annie: Admittedly, I've been a snob. I've never liked video as a news gathering device, although I'm happy to acknowledge that I'm in the minority, and the medium is here to stay. So now that Newspaperland has to feed a visual portal, how do I warm up to it? Signed, Off Switch Here.

Dear Off Switch: You warm up to it by wrapping your ink-stained arms around it. Really. Video can be a useful tool for a writer -- you can put down your pen and notebook and really watch your subject talk; you can listen with your whole body, and let the inanimate machine do all the labor. Like you, I sniffed at teevee. But I'm just back from doing a video interview, and I found it to be fun fun fun. Save your snobbery for something more important, like wine or cars or Oregon beaches. Get with the program, my child.