When Silicon Valley Took Over the ’New Republic’ - The Atlantic
▻https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/when-silicon-valley-took-over-journalism/534195
A memorable yet utterly forgettable example: A story about a Minnesota hunter killing a lion named Cecil generated some 3.2 million stories. Virtually every news organization—even The New York Times and The New Yorker—attempted to scrape some traffic from Cecil. This required finding a novel angle, or a just novel enough angle. Vox: “Eating Chicken Is Morally Worse Than Killing Cecil the Lion.” BuzzFeed: “A Psychic Says She Spoke With Cecil the Lion After His Death.” TheAtlantic.com: “From Cecil the Lion to Climate Change: A Perfect Storm of Outrage One-upmanship.”
In some ways, this is just a digitally enhanced version of an old-fashioned media pile-on. But social media amplify the financial incentive to join the herd.
(…) Trump began as Cecil the lion and ended up president of the United States.
#presse #internet #audience #chartbeat via Catherine d’Ignazio