Buzzfeed
Rehash
Rehash
4.5 • 613 Ratings
🗓️ 6 November 2023
⏱️ 77 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When you think of “hard news”, a company that once published an article called “13 Potatoes That Look Like Channing Tatum” probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Yes, in this episode Hannah and Maia are tackling Buzzfeed - the millennial fluff aggregator that managed to be on the cutting edge of digital journalism for a bit there. And in the process, changed the way we consume news, and maybe even the societal flow of information altogether. Journalism is in crisis… and is Buzzfeed to blame? Listen for riveting discussions such as: the digital media gold rush and its inevitable demise; is Trump the attention economy personified? Is Justin Bieber one of the four horsemen of the news apocalypse? And… does Anna Wintour really have a f*ck ass bob?Â
SOURCES:
Jill Abramson, “Why BuzzFeed and Vice Couldn’t Make News Work” Vanity Fair (2023).
Domagoj Bebić, “Viral journalism: The rise of a new form” Medij. Istraž, vol. 22, (2016).
David Elliot Berman, “The Spaces of Sensationalism: A Comparative Case Study of the New York Journal and BuzzFeed” International Journal of Communication, vol. 15 (2021).
Ken Bensinger and Miriam Elder, “These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia” Buzzfeed News (2017).
Kathryn Bowd, “Social media and news media: Building new publics or fragmenting audiences?” in Making Publics, Making Places, ed. Mary Griffiths and Kim Barbour, University of Adelaide Press (2016).
Bob Franklin, “The Future of Journalism in an Age of Digital Media and Economic Uncertainty” Journalism Studies, vol. 15 (2014).
Josh Gerstein, “BuzzFeed Deletes Post Critical of Dove, a BuzzFeed Advertiser” Politico (2021).
David A. Graham, The Trouble With Publishing the Trump Dossier” The Atlantic (2017).
John Herrman, “The News Went Viral: The media bet its future on Facebook. Did it learn from that mistake?” New York Mag (2023).
Nathan J. Robinson, “The Collapse of BuzzFeed News Shows Why For-Profit Journalism is a Disaster” Current Affairs (2023).
Rachel Sanders, “BuzzFeed Doesn’t Deserve Its Newsroom” The Nation (2022).
Mia Sato, “The unbearable lightness of BuzzFeed” The Verge (2022).
Alyson Shontell, “Inside Buzzfeed: The Story Of How Jonah Peretti Built The Web's Most Beloved New Media Brand” Buzzfeed Insider (2012).
Ravi Somaiya, “BuzzFeed Restores 2 Posts Its Editor Deleted” The New York Times (2015).
J.K Trotter, “BuzzFeed Deletes Post Critical of Dove, a BuzzFeed Advertiser” Gawker (2015).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I want to start this episode with a preface. We recorded this in the summer before Hamas' attack on October 7th |
| 0:06.6 | and the subsequent genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. For one, our introductory conversation is about an air show that happened in Toronto, |
| 0:15.1 | and we lightly comment on the fact that it sounds like an air raid. We obviously would not be discussing that so casually today. |
| 0:22.2 | I also want to acknowledge that this situation in Gaza and now the West Bank has demonstrated |
| 0:27.3 | a complete ethical collapse on the side of mainstream Western journalism in the way these |
| 0:32.4 | events have been covered, erasing the horrific brutality being exercised against the Palestinian people right now, at the |
| 0:39.2 | hands of the Israeli government, and with the support of our own tax dollars. |
| 0:44.1 | But this coverage of the plate of Palestinians is not new, unfortunately. |
| 0:48.8 | The situation in Gaza has also resulted in the murders of, at the time I record this, at |
| 0:53.8 | least 36 journalists |
| 0:55.4 | and media workers covering the genocide. These murders, like the targeted murders of civilians, |
| 1:01.2 | are in violation of international humanitarian law. We want you to keep all this in mind before |
| 1:06.6 | proceeding with this episode, which is about the protection of informed, independent, and |
| 1:12.2 | ethical journalism. |
| 1:16.1 | There's an air show going on in Toronto right now, which is basically a bunch of planes |
| 1:21.6 | flying over the fucking city and making so much noise. It sounds like airstrikes. |
| 1:29.8 | You can probably hear it at this very moment. I can literally see jets going by outside our window right now. And the worst part is that |
| 1:36.3 | this morning, they stopped for like multiple hours, like maybe three hours. And the second we sat down |
| 1:41.8 | and hit record, they started flying again. They're doing all |
| 1:44.6 | these like tricks in the sky. It's literally the worst. I fucking hate it. It's very jingoistic and |
| 1:50.2 | pro-military and- And just inconsiderate to everybody. Like, no, who is happy that the air show is |
| 1:57.0 | happening? A lot of people, unfortunately. Not people I know. In the area I used to live and people would all go up to the top of like the tallest building in the area and like watch the air show. My parents used to take me and I'd freak out because I was like, this is so scary. That would give me a panic attack. I lived really close to the lakeshore as a kid and like, oh my God, we hated it every single year. Yeah, I also hated it. My dog would lose his mind. |
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