The IMCT Media Criticism Thread

[Dr. Medulla]

From about age 8 to 14, my only jacket was denim. I never took the sleeves off, tho, or wrote anything on the back. I was middle class, you see.

No Maiden patch?




Oh yeah, you'd have had a Rush Pesto patch.

I was a middle-class good kid, sir. I had no patches on my jean jacket.

[Dr. Medulla]

From Matt Taibbi's obituary for Ailes:

Ailes trained Americans to shop for the news as a commodity. Not just on the right but across the political spectrum now, Americans have learned to view the news as a consumer product.

What most of us are buying when we tune in to this or that channel or read this or that newspaper is a reassuring take on the changes in the world that most frighten us. We buy the version of the world that pleases us and live in little bubbles where we get to nurse resentments all day long and no one ever tells us we're wrong about anything. Ailes invented those bubbles.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/fe ... er-w483013

There seems, on first blush, some truth to this. Perhaps Facebook, Twitter, et al would have accomplished the same deed—I follow only those I agree with, I'll unfriend those whose views differ, but I want confirmation of my beliefs and outrages—but there's merit to the idea that Ailes, taking advantage of the end of the Fairness Doctrine, gave it a vital first push.

[Inder]

With tronc in the news recently for picking up the LA Times and NYDN/installing an ex-Yahoo! person to head the thing, I still find it baffling how tech assholes somehow became qualified to run news properties. The (UK) Telegraph tried SEO journalism around 2013 with an ex-AOL guy in charge — to much derision, no appreciable benefits and inferior journalism. I think he got the sack like a year into the gig.

And another thing — the pivot to video thing that's being ruining lives in journalism recently is premised on such opaque bullshit. This in spite of the high-profile exposés on companies like Facebook fudging or fabricating metrics in order to sell expensive video advertising.

[Dr. Medulla]

With tronc in the news recently for picking up the LA Times and NYDN/installing an ex-Yahoo! person to head the thing, I still find it baffling how tech assholes somehow became qualified to run news properties. The (UK) Telegraph tried SEO journalism around 2013 with an ex-AOL guy in charge — to much derision, no appreciable benefits and inferior journalism. I think he got the sack like a year into the gig.

A belief that consumers are passive, yet somehow also unpredictable, so it just takes better technology to control the masses?

And another thing — the pivot to video thing that's being ruining lives in journalism recently is premised on such opaque bullshit. This in spite of the high-profile exposés on companies like Facebook fudging or fabricating metrics in order to sell expensive video advertising.

I fucking despise the presence of video in news stories, except in some circumstances where it's more like raw footage. I've got zero patience for watching some nimrod babbling when I can read the damn story myself. Again, tho, it's the perception of audience passivity plus the desire for it.

[eumaas]

Millennials vastly prefer reading the news to watching it. It's way quicker for one.

[Kory]

Millennials vastly prefer reading the news to watching it. It's way quicker for one.

Plus it's harder to watch a video when you're supposed to be doing other things.

[Marky Dread]

Millennials vastly prefer reading the news to watching it. It's way quicker for one.

Plus it's harder to watch a video when you're supposed to be doing other things like reading.

[Dr. Medulla]

Coincidentally, I've noticed the last few days that some sites won't let embedded video play unless I turn adblocker off. That's, um, that's quite a threat you got going there, chum.

[Kory]

Coincidentally, I've noticed the last few days that some sites won't let embedded video play unless I turn adblocker off. That's, um, that's quite a threat you got going there, chum.

UX FUN!

[Inder]

[Dr. Medulla]

Millennials vastly prefer reading the news to watching it. It's way quicker for one.

Interestingly enough, students raised this a couple weeks ago and almost all of them said that, yup, they'd rather read something that watch a video. Is the push to video meant for old folks or is it just social engineering, user preference be damned?

[Silent Majority]

Millennials vastly prefer reading the news to watching it. It's way quicker for one.

Interestingly enough, students raised this a couple weeks ago and almost all of them said that, yup, they'd rather read something that watch a video. Is the push to video meant for old folks or is it just social engineering, user preference be damned?

My educated guess is that its better for ad revenue.

[Dr. Medulla]

Millennials vastly prefer reading the news to watching it. It's way quicker for one.

Interestingly enough, students raised this a couple weeks ago and almost all of them said that, yup, they'd rather read something that watch a video. Is the push to video meant for old folks or is it just social engineering, user preference be damned?

My educated guess is that its better for ad revenue.

How so?

[Silent Majority]

Millennials vastly prefer reading the news to watching it. It's way quicker for one.

Interestingly enough, students raised this a couple weeks ago and almost all of them said that, yup, they'd rather read something that watch a video. Is the push to video meant for old folks or is it just social engineering, user preference be damned?

My educated guess is that its better for ad revenue.

How so?

Harder to get around ads with an adblocker when they're hard coded into the vid, more user engagement because it requires more clicks, less scrolling down a page because you have to stay static to watch the video. I'm not basing this on anything but conjecture.

[Dr. Medulla]

Millennials vastly prefer reading the news to watching it. It's way quicker for one.

Interestingly enough, students raised this a couple weeks ago and almost all of them said that, yup, they'd rather read something that watch a video. Is the push to video meant for old folks or is it just social engineering, user preference be damned?

My educated guess is that its better for ad revenue.

How so?

Harder to get around ads with an adblocker when they're hard coded into the vid, more user engagement because it requires more clicks, less scrolling down a page because you have to stay static to watch the video. I'm not basing this on anything but conjecture.

Gotcha. The first part especially makes sense.