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I was reading about Facebook's partnership with ABC News for 2008 election coverage and tend to agree with the skeptics who say it won't really gain substantial traction. It's not just about bringing the existing coverage, which doesn't really attract young people, to places where young people hang out - though I think engaging citizens to participate in the debates via YouTube or MySpace is a step in the right direction. It's about making the coverage better, smarter, funnier and most importantly more relevant to younger voters -- and traditional television news completely fails at this. It's why "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" are as popular as they are with younger viewers -- these shows are making fun of how ridiculous most of the coverage is. It's also why I wasn't surprised when the folks at CNN told me teens were uploading videos satirizing their own anchors.
This is a generation that wants its news unfiltered, i.e. not delivered by robotic anchors or broadcast journalists all trained to speak in that exact same news delivery tone. There was a reason we called some of the broadcast journalism students who wanted to be on-air "the jocks of journalism school" at Northwestern. If anything, young people want journalists to act more human and be more like them, i.e. relatable. That aspect of being able to interact with ABC News correspondents on Facebook sort of addresses this, but I think we need a whole new style of reporting that's less plastic. MTV News and Docs pioneered a more natural style of news storytelling, which was picked up by Channel One and Current TV (mostly led by Mitch Koss). If the networks want to expand their advertising beyond Viagra, they might consider adopting a different news delivery style. This generation also wants their news on demand - whenever they feel like it on whatever device they have. They want to choose from a multitude of sources.
My dream Open Social news widget or Facebook application would be a news aggregator widget would be like a portable MyYahoo with news articles, photos and videos customized according to what I'm interested in. Maybe it updates automatically when I join a new group around something topical to reflect that interest. It's just about making news available to youth where they're hanging out (push) vs. having to pull them to your news sites. Maybe this exists already...if so, let me know.
Given Stephen Colbert's popularity on Facebook, I'm kind of surprised they didn't partner with Comedy Central. Maybe they could have created an app that was both funny and informative.
Posted by anastasia
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Comments
Re "MTV News and Docs pioneered a more natural style of news storytelling"
What does "Docs" mean?
Posted by: Eric Jaffa | November 26, 2007 11:37 AM
Docs stands for documentaries...
Posted by: Anastasia | November 26, 2007 11:52 AM
I think this article speaks to an important aspect of media that is constantly being ignored: the idea of change and flexibility.
There is one news show that I have been watching recently that seems to really hit the youth market. And it's not from Comedy Central.
It's G4's Attack of the Show which has two young hosts who talk about the pop culture/gaming news of the day. Although the news is not about the Obama vs. Clinton battles, the style and substance of the news is fresh, relevant, brief and concise.
I think that if there was a new show that featured world/political news content (like the BBC) with the style and hands-on approach of Attack of the Show, more young people would have CHOICES of news to watch and not have to rely on the tiring and convoluted process of deciphering and breaking down parodies and jokes to get the real story, also know as risking misinformation.
Posted by: Stephanie | November 26, 2007 03:04 PM