Bored Reporters Scouring YouTube For Anything Semi-Popular To Write About
from the just-add-youtube dept
Last month, we noticed the slight oddity of news reports randomly picking up on a video that was somewhat popular on YouTube, and using that as the basis of a news article (which, in turn drove a lot more publicity to the video -- leading to the false conclusion that it was YouTube that made it popular, rather than mainstream press coverage about the fact it was on YouTube). Anyway, now that we've hit the slow news days of August, it appears that reporters just can't resist dipping into the YouTube popular videos pile to come up with a random story. Earlier this week, it was the 72-year-old man making YouTube videos, and today it's apparently "How to be a chav." It used to be that reporters actually had to keep their ear to the internet buzz circle to figure out what was going on. Now, apparently they just have to peek at the top videos on YouTube and their story is basically written.
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MEH
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Right on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season
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Isn't This Still Citizen Media?
When mainstream reporters look towards the blogosphere or YouTube, it gives the ordinary citizen a chance to be heard, if what they have to say is powerful enough. This is what makes Digg so powerful, that the ordinary user can vote and it attracts broader coverage to the issue.
This doesn't mean that we shouldn't see investigative journalism, but given the amount of content that newspaper's have to produce, it isn't realistic to expect them to not get inspiration for stories from what other journalists are writing about.
Maybe this does beg the question of whether or not the mainstream coverage drove the hits or whether it was the community, but if the community wasn't impressed to begin with, then it wouldn't have caught a reporters radar.
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Alternative View
How about: "Bored Bloggers Scouring Bored Reporters Scouring YouTube For Anything Semi-Popular To Write About for something to write about"
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AdverseE lol...
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Re: Isn't This Still Citizen Media?
Davis, there's a difference between picking up on actual trends and just grabbing whatever video happens to be at the top of the popular list that day...
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Re:
Yup. But for a very good reason. It's an *interesting* and different story that reporters seem to suddenly be taking the top random video from youtube and writing up a whole article about it. Part of what we do here is media criticism, and this story certainly fits. However, you'll notice the focus of the two stories are totally different. The reporters are simply grabbing the top video and saying "look, this is interesting." What we did was pick up the actual trend and point that out. That's quite different.
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This Just In!
Film at 11.
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Dual Headlining
The first part of the headline was the main story, with the second part being a short blurb about a video, and of course, the video itself.
Every time the headline was interesting, I read the story, realized it had nothing to do with the video, then watched the video.
It was definitely a good way to drive visitors to the site, as it got me. repeatedly.
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Re: Right on.
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So what?
Sometimes that's more interesting than AOL digging for gold! Like that IS news? Please AOL has been digging for years.
But a young audience attending a geriatric video/blog is quite interesting. Alot of kids don't have any adults who are concerned, let alone some 72 year old in England. In some small way he must be providing something for them that they can get no other way. Whether it's wisdom, advice, or just plain old nostalgia.
YouTube is a mirror of society. If you don't like it or agree, it's thgere nonetheless and one cannot denie its popularity. Since the advent of YouTube, instead of knocking it, lets see what happens.
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Social Reporting
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Re: Right on.
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