I've done a lot of media surfing over the last few weeks. My normal routine has been disrupted by March break and the very distressing and sad story of Malaysian air flight MH370. Normally on my way to work I listen to the top 40 hits on Sirius Satellite Radio. I can sing, "Like the Ceiling Can't Hold Us" right along with the teenagers. Anyway, March break has meant that I have had the whole car ride to myself, not just the usual few minutes after dropping my daughter and her friends off at school. As soon as I drop off the kids I normally hit the CNN button so that I can get a brief overview of international and American politics because many of my story ideas come to me on my drive to work. For the last 10 days I've had a chance to listen to CNN for the whole 20 minute drive to and from work but, alas, the respite from Katy Perry and Pink has been incredibly discouraging.
Since the disappearance of flight MH370, CNN has run what appears to be continual coverage of well... nothing... They have no news to offer about this horrible tragedy and yet for hours and hours we find "experts" driven to statements like, "Well of course we have absolutely no idea what happened and I really can't speculate on what happened but let me just say..." And then, of course, they speculate on what happened. Then we cut to another "expert" who says, "I completely agree with the aforesaid person, we have no idea what happened but I disagree with aforesaid person's theory and although I have no idea what happened please just me just say what I think happened." And this pattern goes on and on and on....
I did listen for a few days and then I found myself so frustrated by the coverage (or non-coverage) that I started thinking about the media and the need to feed the 24 hour news cycle. I also started to listen elsewhere for my news. This morning, coincidently, the BBC World Service ran a story about new digital media and particularly the way in which we get our news.
Let me ask you a question? If I said to you, "Which Frozen Character Are You?" Or, "Which Friends Character Are You?" could you answer these questions because you guessed or because you know the answer? In other words, did you take the Buzzfeed quiz? And, if you did the quiz, did you post the result on Facebook? If so, then you are (potentially) a part of the new world of digital news delivery.
Manuela Saragosa of the BBC did an interview about the way that digital media are moving in on the traditional world of news making and news delivery. The piece called, "Viral Marketing" can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01vvtwx. She interviewed Martin Belam a journalist and media consultant and Will Hayward of Buzzfeed who both spoke quite eloquently about the way that websites, like Upworthy, Newshound and Buzzfeed are slowly gaining an audience for real news stories intermingled with the "silly" lists of weird cat behaviour and quizzes. Saragosa was skeptical. How can sites that offer such silly content be compared to traditional media that "are there to inform?" Hayward was quick to answer, "... this is a classic reaction to a disruptive new form of company." And he added, picking up from a comment by Belam, that the traditional media have a "very snobbish attitude to the content we [are] creating." All the silliness of these sites is meant to draw in the reader and, more importantly, to encourage them to post what they have read on Facebook. It is the sharing that makes the new digital media new. The "real" stories, Belam and Hayward argue, make up much less of the overall content of the sites but the key is that the real news stories will be read if they are packaged into entertainment. Moreover, as Hayward argues, most young people find the important content pieces that they read were posted on their Facebook by their friends who also post their quiz results.
It will be interesting to see whether this new trend really catches on and if digital sharing changes the way we get our serious news.
