Informed Comment

Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion

Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Daily Beast

Check out the terrific new politics and news site The Daily Beast.

posted by Juan Cole @ 11/18/2008 04:15:00 PM

5 Comments:

At 7:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Looks sensational and gossipy. Politics may have its silly and bizarre sides, but I vastly prefer a reasoned discussion of issues. That's why I voted for...

 
At 8:55 PM, Blogger SR said...

On first impression I get the feeling that it won't hold a candle to the Buffalo. Let's hope I'm wrong.

 
At 9:18 PM, Blogger Helena Cobban said...

Politics and news? You gotta be kidding. It's fluff. The pieces don't have any links. And the site is really hard to understand, let alone navigate.

 
At 1:15 AM, Anonymous Omar said...

i agree with the three above.. I would say thedailyshow.com is a better news source..

 
At 1:32 PM, Blogger MonsieurGonzo said...

"fluffy" ...what an interesting response from a Just the facts, M'am newswire teletype-stacked static, 2-Dimensional linear linker kinda thinker {grin}

It is at once "fluffy" ie., frivolous; lacking depth or precision ~ yet at the same time "hard to understand," which, Madame ~ is hard to understand.

fwiw, I'd put (Tina Brown's) The Daily Beast in the same genre as (Arianna's) Huffington Post; note that the latter is wildy popular. And, after all, isn't that ~ not their content ~ their intent? Does it have to be all erudite to be all right? When the Professor does a riff on James Bond as some kinda nouveau Western milieu take on anti-imperialism, gets a zillion hits, then gets echo'd all over the media like a pebble in a tin can: is he being "fluffy"-? or... clever like a Fox ;-)

i mean, talk about a No Fluff Zone: as Ted Turner said the other day: "You ever watch 'Lou Dobbs'? It's not funny, is it?"

it's pretty easy to tell who's watching NBC, CBS and ABC Evening News on American TeeVee (hint: most of their sponsors are pharmaceutical companies peddling geriatric pills and potions), and who's getting their news from Comedy Central (think: you were born at or after the time that the IBM typewriter was replaced by the IBM personal computer). That is to say, they don't want their news to just sit there on their plate, they want to "mash it up" ~ they want it to move : Catch Me If You Can! that big window slideshow beckons. Young Americans don't want reporters (when it comes to War and other matters 'bang-bang', the media's credibility is shot). What they want are news navigators, narrators; a conversation. The headline as a rhetorical question is an invitation to consider; The postmodern news show is not a ponder tell but a poser talkabout channel -vs- channel walkabout.

YooHoo! over here, dear ~ aren't you just dying to know what Carla Bruni just said about President Bush on David Letterman?

 

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