The Daily Minutiae

http://scrippsjschool.org/ohiojournalist/article.php?id=10

For our first day of journalism class, we were asked to read an article explaining how the media world is in transition.  While reading, I was expecting a paper assigned: "Where do YOU see mass media is going?"

I think the world is starting to tap into age-old wisdom via new-age technology.  There are just some that people trust their news with.  Celebrities, in a way.  The first person that came to mind as I went through the article was John Stewart.  

My brother recently showed me Indecision2008.com, the official Comedy Central coverage of the ongoing election.  Granted, John Stewart and Stephen Colbert aren't what you'd call quality journalists, or even really journalists at all, but there are some people I know who rely on that for their daily news.  Obviously these people don't take the election too seriously.  I can't help but think, though, that Comedy Central has tapped into something rooted in all of us: the need to listen to the village storyteller.

John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Tom Brokaw, Neil Cavuto, Nancy Grace, Anderson Cooper, Ann Curry, Al Roker!  All of these people are popular on television, but several of them are in print and online too.  People can't get enough of them.  

Look at Katie Couric.  Almost everyday, people log on to cbsnews.com to see what old Katie wrote in her notebook today.  As if we know her.  At a quick glance, I noticed she averages about a dozen comments for each of these paragraph blurbs.  They're god-awful from a git-yer-news standpoint, too short to really know what's going on.  But... it's Katie Couric; it's who we want to hear it from.  I wish I got a dozen posts on my Facebook wall everyday.

Yes, sir: the big bucks in the media come from being the guy everybody wants to hear it from.  And the more ways you give people what's going on, the bigger those bucks get.  We know that newspapers and magazines are starting to give up their readership to the 'net.  It's all about being that name everybody goes to, and being everywhere.