OpEdNews » How the New Media Works

October 8, 2007 at 08:33:09

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How the New Media Works

by Cenk Uygur Page 1 of 3 page(s)

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I've met and interviewed Brian Williams. He's a lovely guy. Personable, funnier than expected and smart. He is also irrelevant.

There's nothing wrong with Brian Williams. He is a smooth, professional news anchor. He's not offensive, biased or fake. He plays it straight - and that's his problem.

It's not him. It's us. We're not interested in someone regurgitating the news to us and taking a half hour to do it. We don't need a professional news anchor to tell us what the news is. This isn't 1955. I've got all the news in the world at my fingertips, what do I need this guy to tell me what he thinks is important? Who cares what Brian Williams thinks is important?

In the old days, you needed these authority figures to sort out the news for you and tell you what was important and weed out the riff-raff. But these aren't the old days. I have a mind of my own. I don't need to borrow a news anchor's. And if I were to borrow one, that's not the first place I would look.

In the new media, news is broken down into three subsets.

The Collectors

Associated Press, New York Times, Washington Post, blogs that break stories, etc. These are our original sources. They are vital. Without these sources, there is nothing for anyone else to report.

The Aggregators

Websites like Google News, digg.com, reddit.com, Huffington Post, Yahoo, AOL News and even your local paper (they aggregate the national and international stories that they do almost no original reporting on). This is where we get a majority of our information. It's quick, it's easy, and often times, it's personalized.

If you like news from a right-wing perspective, you go to Drudge. If you like news from a moderate or left-wing perspective, you go to Huffington Post. If you want it down the middle, you go to Yahoo. You want gossip, go to Perez Hilton. You want news and video from a progressive perspective, go to Crooks and Liars or Think Progress.

Everyone has their niche. Everyone has an audience they serve well.

The Interpreters

Commentators that analyze the news from their (your) perspective. Fox News Channel, Keith Olbermann, Air America, Rush Limbaugh. Some blogs also fall in this category (unsurprisingly, blogs are often hybrids that cross many different boundaries).

These are people that help bring the news to you in a way you agree with. They inform you, but they also excite, enrage and impassion you. Their purpose is analysis/entertainment. Some people call this category infotainment. I prefer (my former co-host) Ben Mankiewicz's name for it - entermation.

So, where do traditional news anchors fit in here? Nowhere.

How often do television reporters break stories these days? Almost never. Most of them are actors reading the news pretending to be real reporters. I'm amused at how other TV reporters feign outrage at Katie Couric becoming the CBS prime time news anchor. Why, do you fancy yourself a journalist? Really, when is the last time you broke a story?

Most of the people on local news are former models and pretty boys with three brain cells between them. Are we supposed to be impressed? Look on TV, does it look like they are making their decisions based on looks or intelligence? Is it just a coincidence that all the pretty people wound up with the jobs on TV?

I understand there are exceptions and I actually picked Brian Williams as my example because I think he is one of the exceptions. He is an awfully bright guy who gets the news. But so what? Even he doesn't bring anything to the table. There's no value added.

Let me recount a recent conversation with my dad by way of example. He recently turned 70 and used to watch the evening news every single night. My mom would have to drag him away from it to get him to sit down for dinner.

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Cenk Uygur is co-host of The Young Turks, the new morning show for Air America Radio, 6-9AM ET. The Young Turks was the first liberal radio show to air nationwide. The program was also the first (more...)

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5 comments

Russ Wellen

Still a Lot of Luddites. . .

. . . out there who want no truck with this Innernet thing.

Also, some people, of any age, like to see the news footage, especially since a lot of video on the Web doesn't work, is fuzzy, etc.

True, Williams, as likeable as he is, is useless. Along, of course, with Gibson and Couric.

Cenk feels the same way about TV national news as I do about magazines. Who would pay actual dollars for a handful of articles when, except for those in the magazine that the magazine's Websites withholds, you can get more articles than you can possibly read free on the Web?

by Russ Wellen (58 articles, 1029 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 335 comments) on Monday, Oct 8, 2007 at 12:43:15 PM

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Rob Kall

Reply: You can't read....

articles on the internet on the hopper. I put my magazines there. (Were huamns able to operate their bowels without reading, at one point in human evolution? I guess so.)

by Rob Kall (952 articles, 4177 quicklinks, 374 diaries, 2087 comments [45 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Tuesday, Oct 9, 2007 at 5:18:10 AM

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Michael Chavers

mainstream media news

CNN and Faux News are just right wing opinion outlets anymore.

I still can’t believe that anyone listens to Rush the college flunkout who got a 4F classification for having a pimple on his ass.

MSNBC has been my news and entertainment for the last year after I watch Keith skewer Mr. Bush. I still watch NBC at 6:30 just to get their spin.

My day job allows me to surf the web and write op eds for my blog and now for OpEd News. Unfortunately they block sites labeled entertainment and politics but I still get many political sites like truthout and Common Dreams aren’t blocked.

Your show is blocked but I will give it a listen from home.

by Michael Chavers (53 articles, 0 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 198 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Oct 8, 2007 at 1:49:05 PM

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Munich

Re: How the New Media Works

Mr. Uygur:

I appreciate all the work you do for the Blogisphere and the Young Turks. However, it appalls me a great deal to hear you say that Brian Williams, this monotone cadenced corporate media shill who appears on our television screens each evening to spoon feed the American people half-truths a "lovely guy." Brian Williams is indeed "smooth," and I would guess if you were receiving the millions he receives annually to spew feckless platitudes, you would also be smooth.

Lest we forget that William's employer is none other than General Electric (we bring good wars to life) who contributed a nice bit of change to this Bush-Cheney junta! Brian Williams might be a nice guy, but he's also not one who'll go against the (GE) grain. Williams, along with the rest of these corporate reticent news anchors ought to be run out of town on a rail for impersonating journalists! These are the very same people who helped sell this horrific and illegal war in Iraq to the American people.

Listen as Williams cowers, while our bellicose usurper "n" chief blathers on with yet more of his vitriolic mendacity. Brian Williams is pathetic!

Bush Walks Louisiana Streets With Foot in Mouth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNIOmbm3KYg

by Munich (1 articles, 86 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 1125 comments [86 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Monday, Oct 8, 2007 at 9:52:26 PM

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Andris

news what news do you mean Infotainment programs

Boy has Yahoo got it wrong in Australia. Here it aligns its self with our Channel 7 network in Aust terms it’s the most salacious of all the frontline ‘news media’.

The media in Australia is more Infotainment that news. Why else are the female anchors all young and pretty? Does that make the news better? No! just more will watch. The more that watch…the more they can charge for advertising=.more profit =more influence they have to influence laws that will effect more profits.

As the American Terrorist Advisor put it “Don’t be afraid of what’s on TV. If its on TV news by definition it’s novel new, rare, unusual. Be afraid of what is NOT on the news. For example how many 9/11 was there? How many killed? When was the last lime you saw an article on the 40000 people killed each year on US roads or 25000 that die of Prostate cancer each year, or the 100000's of Americans that die from smoking related diseases…….On Iraq when was the last time you saw a new article on the 1000000 civilians Iraqi killed?....That has a greater effect on security than 3000+ soldiers tragic though it is.”

by Andris (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 531 comments) on Tuesday, Oct 9, 2007 at 9:00:15 PM

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