YouTubers Got To Interview The President Because They're More Legitimate Than Traditional News
from the among-the-disrupted dept
If there's one overarching theme of this blog for the 16+ years that it's been around, it might be "disrupted industries behaving badly." It seems to be a fairly constant theme. And the news business is no exception. And, boy, have they been bitching and whining about it a lot lately. If you want to see the quintessential example of clueless self-pity, it has to be Leon Wieseltier's recent NY Times whinefest, Among the Disrupted. Wieseltier is definitely among the disrupted, having recently lost his longtime job at the New Republic as part of a publication-wide freakout over the fact that the new management (led by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes) wanted to try to make the magazine a bit more relevant to the younger generation. It is a paean to elitism, eloquently insisting that without the cultural elite guiding the way, the digital riffraff online will never understand the true cultural meaning of anything.A similar piece appeared last week, in the SF Chronicle, by Jon Carroll, in which he does his best impression of telling the digital kids to get off his lawn, while trying to come to terms with the fact that those darn kids today just don't really trust or believe in the "real media" any more (though he seems to use a rather arbitrary description of who is good -- Al Jazeera -- and who is crud -- Fox News).
But to see the truly hysterical old media in action, you need to just pay attention to the collective freakout over the White House's decision to let three YouTube stars interview President Obama. It quickly became an easy punchline for sneering elites that this was somehow "beneath the dignity" of the White House. Much of the focus was on one of the three, GloZell Green, a comedian who does funny stuff on her YouTube channel -- including silly challenges, like (the one that everyone keeps bringing up) taking a bath in cereal.
Hank Green, one of the other two YouTubers who took part in the interview has hit back with an absolutely fantastic post explaining why it totally makes sense for the White House to have such YouTubers interview the President, rather than the mainstream media. And it's because most people don't think the mainstream media is legitimate any more. It's lost its legitimacy, because the facade of what the news does has come down. The traditional news report -- what Jay Rosen has repeatedly referred to as "the church of the savvy" or "the view from nowhere" -- focuses on playing up their own connections and insiderness, rather than honesty and earnestness.
But these YouTubers, by contrast, are real -- and people trust them and view them as legitimate because they're real. As Green writes:
I think sub-consciously they understand the really terrifying thing here. Glozell and Bethany and I weren’t put in a chair next to President Obama because we have cultivated an audience. We were put there because we have cultivated legitimacy.What's amazing is that the Carroll article I mentioned earlier actually is an almost perfect mirror of Green's article in some ways. They both mock the fakeness of Fox News. And they both admit that people now trust their friends and social media contacts more than such news providers. But in Carroll's world, this is dangerous and a sign of the people today not wanting "content" but just snippets:
The source of our legitimacy is the very different from their coiffed, Armani institutions. It springs instead (and I’m aware that I’m abandoning any modicum of modesty here) from honesty. In new media this is often called “authenticity” because our culture is too jaded to use a big fat word like “honesty” without our gallbladders clogging up, but that’s really what it is.
Glozell, Bethany and I don’t sit in fancy news studios surrounded by fifty thousand dollar cameras and polished metal and glass backdrops with inlayed 90-inch LCD screens. People trust us because we’ve spent years developing a relationship with them. We have been scrutinized and found not evil. Our legitimacy comes from honesty, not from cultural signals or institutions.
And with young people having no reasons to trust those cultural signals that we older folks were raised with, this is the only thing that works for them anymore. Our values and interests mesh with theirs enough that they’ve come to trust us. They trust us to make content that they will enjoy and they trust us to be the kind of people they can look up to. People who betray that trust risk losing everything that they have built.
People don’t want content anymore. They want diversion, and there’s plenty of that. Even the occasional discussion of public issues is diverting; have an opinion, post and go. The formats do not encourage complex discussion, and wit is prized above knowledge.It really seems like Carroll and Green are discussing the same phenomenon, but from very different perspectives. Green is surfing the wave, while Carroll is being dragged under by it. And, frankly, Carroll is wrong. People absolutely do want "content." They crave it. What they want is honest content -- and that's the point that Green is making. They care what their friends say because that's honest, and as even Carroll admits in his piece, the media doesn't do that very well.
People don’t care what the media say. They care what their friends say; they get what information they get from people just like themselves. They don’t buy the new, friendlier one-to-many model; it’s still just strangers babbling. You know your friends; you trust them. If they say a restaurant is good, it’s good. If a media site says it, who cares?
Of course, it’s not as simple as that. We’re in a transitional phase; old-media outlets may be shrinking but they still make a lot of money, while the business model for digital publication is a work in progress. But the trends are clear. Objective reporting is now considered impossible, so why bother? And equally: Why bother with complexity?
But from honesty can come complexity. And investigative reporting and a variety of other things. Carroll argues that this new wave has killed off such investigative reporting, but that's ridiculous and wrong. He whines about crusaders, but it's those crusaders who have taken a deep interest in key issues that allows them to do the investigative reporting that needs to be done -- and to do it in a manner that people trust. Because it's real. Glenn Greenwald isn't a traditional investigative reporter, but he's built up a mountain of trust, because his own personality shines through in everything that he does. Agree with him or not, no one can deny that Greenwald is quite real and unlike the interchangeable heads seen on cable news. And the same is true for other "real" figures that the traditional media likes to mock, like Jon Stewart or Jon Oliver. They take different paths, but they really connect with their viewers. And it's the same for the YouTubers that the White House invited in.
The legacy media players may not like it, but mainly because it rips down the facade they've been living behind for so long. The facade that pretends they're all about "objective news reporting" when the reality has long been that they're more focused on being seen as important. The gatekeepers of the news. But the news has no more gatekeepers, and the public seems to prefer honesty, rather than made up objectivity. The view from nowhere now means that many people (especially younger people) see those newscasters as being nowhere at all. And that's why it completely makes sense for the White House to reach out to those people who are real, who have built up trust, and who will continue to be real, even if they ask questions that the mainstream media considers beneath them.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: authenticity, glozell green, hank green, interview, jon carroll, journalism, leon wiesteltier, president obama, state of the union
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Sorry MPAA. This news has come from a legitimate, trusted source. You are going to have to close up shop.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
But...
It's true, though - Al Jazeera is actually pretty good news, and fox news is crud. I suspect the English News watching public in foreign lands are a more edujumucated crowd than thet there Fox bunch. By definition, they've likely learned English as a second language.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
One missing point
Not just young people. I'm a couple of generations removed from that age group, but I too have no reason to trust those cultural signals and instead decide what sources to trust based on the honesty and accuracy of their journalism. On that front, the old-guard journalism industry is, by and large, a failure.
Further, I'm far from the only person in my age group that feels this way. While admitting selection bias up front, I would say about 2/3 of the people my age that I know feel the same.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Google gets a pass because they have a reputation for openness. They are seen as a provider of communication platforms rather than a manipulator of content.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Why I keep coming back
[ link to this | view in thread ]
No Millennial coined the phrase "yellow journalism"; no YouTuber invented "If it bleeds, it leads". Media has always been as sensational and lurid as culture has allowed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: One missing point
I've seen enough of how that plays with major media parroting what ever the current stance is only to find it a lie (not honesty btw). The authority has been tarnished in a way that very few with objective view points can believe. It's not one source, it's come down to damn near all of them.
These correspondents and reporters need to go take a real close look in the mirror. The reason more than just the young no longer trust you, is because the bias is more important than the story and it is plainly evident.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Old media = money
I don't think this is the problem. Sure, they might want to feel important at the level of the individual journalist. But the primary difference between Big Media and a YouTuber is money.
The YouTuber might make $40-200K and be perfectly pleased by that because they're getting paid to do what they like doing.
OTOHm Big Media looks at what they make today and asks, "What can we do to triple that in 5 years?" No indiginity is to great -- and no selling out is too transparent -- as long as the profits go up. Exhibit A: The once-great 60-Minutes, who are now a joke thanks to pandering to the government, where they used to be our most reliable watchdog.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Old media = money
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That's stupid man, that so-called diversion, yeah, that's content.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That's why I no longer trust any mainstream corporate news. All mainstream news is politically or corporately motivated propaganda news heavily pushing the establishment's side of the story.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
In the case of the Ukraine war, it's a very easy solution: read Russian sites like RT.com or SputnikNews.com which report the other side of that war. Of course these sites can be just as one-sided as the US media (in the opposite direction) and so by reading both sides, it's much easier to try to piece together a somewhat-accurate version of events.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: One missing point
Or the news media covering the US embassy prisoners in Iran, as today the mainstream media dutifully complies with government orders to keep silent about all news of captured US citizens.
Sadly, those days of press freedom may never happen again. Since news coverage of the Vietnam war took down a sitting president, all we get post-Vietman is 'embedded' reporters and sanitized, 'on-message' news. And since news coverage of Iran embassy POWs took down another sitting president, all we get post-Iran is silence whenever Americans are taken prisoner. (I'm still trying to find out the name of the ISIS prisoner who White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough accidently let slip live on ABC's "This Week" -- a name-slip widely reported, yet never repeated by any mainstream media.)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: One missing point
So the Govt took Y course of action. Are there Constitutional implications? Is it ethic? Why? Can it be done in a more efficient way? Why? Is it just a fruit of some partisan bickering? etc etc etc
Makes it much, much more interesting when questions are raised and the journalists conduct analyzes on them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
All I get from most traditional news media is the feeling that they're treating me like a vaguely disinterested idiot who needs to be constantly re-reminded what the story of the hour is every three minutes, and and to have everything explained to me in small words in a loud voice.
People don't want contempt any more.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: One missing point
Exactly. All you have to do is look at the lamestream liberal media's softball treatment of Obama to see the media is now a mouthpiece for the government. Obama got hammered in the debates because he couldn't answer the hard questions because he was never asked any by the media. Well except by Fox, but he wouldn't/couldn't answer those questions.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: One missing point
The press on both sides have collectively lost their spines, and become little more than mouth-pieces to whoever feels like using them, as they'll just parrot whatever they're told without question in almost all cases.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: One missing point
Obama succeded in the debates (and won the elections) because he answered the intelligent, hard questions while his opponents could't even offer a coherent response to the most basic of questions beyond vague "bumper sticker" slogans.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: One missing point
The name "Bush" comes to mind...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Such as only reporting casualties for the Ukraine government side."
The Russians aren't reporting their losses, so short of sending a reporter onto the battlefield, how do you get the figures, boy?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: One missing point
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Nobody is doing it right
It used to be the job of news organizations to ask hard questions and do investigation to keep those in government honest. Those days disappeared a long time ago.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
American TV NEWS has always been corporate backed, but the public was far less aware of the connection and could be lied to easier prior to the internet, because they had no real means to verify the information being disseminated by the elder NEWS media.
Old media thus had a good name and was trusted - people believed they were reporting the facts, and to a large extent, they were doing so, far more than today.
However, the modern media is, as was stated in the linked article by Hank Green, hiding behind the Elder NEWS Media's Good Name, pretending to be the same institution, but has become 100% dependant on corporate funding and 100% obedient to corporate needs and resorts to actually lying outright to please their corporate masters quite often.
Young people have simply noted the dishonesty too often to trust the media anymore.
I don't think media is actually much less honest today than it was 30 years ago, but the public certainly had more trust in the media back then than it does today.
As far as Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best and other TV sitcoms and series are concerned, that's not the NEWS media.
That was simply the style of social engineering propaganda of that day, and such tripe is still being produced and shown on TV today, although today its more about owning the newest technology/fashion to increase sales and turning in your neighbor for strange behavior to increase surveillance legality and hiding from the army of terrorists and drug dealers that inhabit every second house/building in the world to increase "War On" type budgets and to legitimize torture by the good guys to get info.
The difference is precisely as you noted yourself. Modern culture simply "allows" the NEWS media to be more lurid and less honest today, but the point being made was that the young public has lost all trust in that media and it does not appear that new NEWS media is even remotely capable of getting that trust back.
And that is a good thing.
---
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: One missing point
I suppose that's better than being stuck in an externally imposed bubble world, though.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
The number of outlets that unabashedly engaged in yellow journalism were relatively few and well-known as such. I mean, all outlets had "yellow" moments, but some were nothing but sensationalistic. Nowadays, it seems, this ratio has reversed. Most outlets -- even the ones that had a strong editorial slant -- were more mindful of things like truth and accuracy than they are now.
This is not to say that the "golden days" of journalism were days where the news was all unbiased and correct. They are only "golden days" in comparison to what they have become.
[ link to this | view in thread ]