Valleywag
clips
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caption contest
Help me Anderson Cooper, you're our only hope
CNN's cheesy hologram stunt for election night got star power from hip-hop artist Will.i.am, whose 3D image was beamed into CNN's studios for an interview with anchor Anderson Cooper. Will.i.am. compared it to Star Wars; Cooper corrected him, saying it was more like Star Trek. But anyone who remembers Princess Leia's holographic plea for help in star Wars knows Will.i.am had his sci-fi references straight. Can you think of a better caption? Leave it in the comments. The best one will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: theodp, for suggesting Google CEO Eric Schmidt was thinking, "With my $1 salary, I'll be getting a tax cut!" -
media
CNN vote coverage marred by hologram stunt
Throughout this election, self-interested vendors of neophilia have touted tech's ability to transform old-school politics. In reality, it has put a new facade on an old building: touchscreen vote analyses and Twitter quotations are just new ways of presenting exit polls and man-on-the-street interviews Barack Obama's heralded social-networking tools? Merely an update of the ward-boss operations of old. CNN's "virtual Capitol" on election night was the ludicrous culmination of this trend. When Wolf Blitzer thanked a holographic correspondent — "Jessica, you're a terrific hologram, thank you so much" — I realized that tech is not transforming the political process; it is debasing it. -
Gaming the System
Websites race to take credit for Obama victory
Forget hacking voting machines; our media brethren are, at this moment, most concerned with gaming Digg to get out the vote for their stories about Barack Obama's apparent victory in the electoral college. (Our sister site Gawker was late to the game; its headline submission for "Obama Wins!" was seventh in line, judging by the URL.) Taking the lead: "Digg This If You Voted for Obama!" with more than 20,000 votes. It points to a CNN.com story. New media serves merely to confirm the victory of old media. -
great moments in journalism
CNN analyst checks Facebook during debates
A cameraman caught CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin checking Facebook in the middle of Wednesday's presidential debate. Come on, admit it: You were doing it, too. (Why is GOP media consultant Alex Castellanos's name scrolling through the frame? Yeah, we couldn't figure that out, either, but we're told it's Toobin on screen, not Castellanos.) -
meltdowns
Ad targeting shoots CNN inside foreclosure article
Matching advertisement to the contents of a website is financial nirvana, right? Wrong. Computers keep getting the ads wrong, with results that would be hilarious were they not so offensive. Yes, an article about foreclosures might be read eagerly by people who want to refinance their mortgage. But a mortgage ad next to a story about a woman who shot herself while being dragged out of her foreclosed home by sheriffs' deputies? Click the image to see the full screenshot. -
great moments in journalism
Wired lauds Current TV for copying CNN
Current TV's Twitter-enhanced live feed of the Obama/McCain debate on Friday "broke new ground," according to Wired blogger Sarah Lai Stirland. But it's been nearly a month since the September 8 premiere of CNN's Rick Sanchez Direct, in which Sanchez turns the camera on Twitter for the modern version of man-on-the-street quotes. How it works: You add Rick. He adds you back. You then tweet live during his show. He may pullquote you, or run the live stream onscreen. Sanchez, currently following nearly 18,000 people, already drew attention for his live tweet-reading during Hurricane Gustav, when Twitterers filed reported facts to millions of viewers. More » -
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politics
How the MSM end-ran Obama
Barack Obama's campaign has been the most successful end-run of the mainstream media machine in American politics. But the senator's plan to text-message his announcement of a running mate at 3 a.m. Saturday —- deliberately out of step with the MSM news cycle — was beaten to the punch by a collusion of two factions: Experienced reporters out to get the scoop, and people close to the politicians who didn't get the gig. More » -
hacks
CNN's self-parodying headlines now available on T-shirts
Is CNN for real? The headlines on its website — "Minced onions force emergency landing" — cause some to wonder if its Atlanta-based producers aren't having a jape at the expense of news junkies. Now, an expansion into selling T-shirts confirms that CNN is laughing at us, not with us. Capitalizing on the trend of mass-personalized e-commerce, CNN.Shirt lets readers pick any recent headline and put it on a T-shirt. As blogger Andy Baio notes, the feature is easily manipulated, allowing users to construct any story they want and get it printed. But why bother making up the news when CNN shows just how much stranger truth is than fiction? -
security
The real reason Google is cooperating with China
CNN has been taken down in parts of China, and reports are suggesting that hackers who may have the support of the Chinese government are responsible. The attacks have come after many Chinese feel that the news network's reports seemed biased in favor of pro-Tibet sentiment. While a simple DDOS attack on CNN's servers is fairly unremarkable, boasts by Chinese hackers that "no Web site is one hundred percent safe" got me thinking. Maybe the reason that Google and other Valley companies are cooperating with the Chinese government isn't just because they're greedy, but also because they're scared. After all, helping to censor and track down dissidents doesn't generate bad press stateside the way that, say, a security breach exposing the private, personal data of millions of Americans might. (Photo by heinousjay) -
