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What a pig, a goat and an eagle can tell us about the decline of traditional media

Mathew Ingram — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:11:54 +0000

If the rise of social media — and specifically the explosion of “viral” content on networks like Facebook and Twitter — has done nothing else, it has certainly given mainstream media plenty of “user-generated content” to add to their dwindling repertoire of journalism. Almost every newscast seems to include a video of cute animals or some other clip that is making the rounds on the social web. Unfortunately, no one seems to care much whether any of these videos are real or not, and that is a very real problem.

The New York Times has written about one recent example of user-generated content gone bad: namely, a video clip of a baby pig “rescuing” a hapless baby goat who is trapped in the pond at a petting zoo. Within hours of the clip being posted to YouTube last fall and subsequently shared on Reddit, it had appeared on The Today Show, NBC’s Nightly News, Good Morning America and dozens of other channels — and why not? It was incredibly cute, and had a feel-good message of the kind that morning shows in particular enjoy.

Of course, the video turned out to be a clip from a new TV show, which the creators manufactured and then uploaded as a kind of viral-marketing ploy. Not only did the baby pig not “rescue” the baby goat, but the producers of the show had to spend hours building an underwater track to even get the pig anywhere near the animal — and in the end they had to use a trained pig, after the one they were originally planning to use showed no intention of going into the pond.

Does it matter whether these clips are real?

As the NYT piece notes, when NBC Nightly News host Brian Williams introduced the video clip, he said he “felt duty bound to share this” with the audience, and added that he didn’t know whether it was real or not. Is that enough of a disclaimer to absolve a media outlet of responsibility for figuring out whether something can be verified or not? Many would argue that it is not. Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute compared it to “a form of malpractice” for journalists (McBride has more on that in a blog post about the incident at Poynter).

@mathewi No. Even though it may seem trivial because it's a pig video, it's embarrassing and adds to distrust of the media.
—
Liz Heron (@lheron) February 27, 2013

Obviously, part of what shows like Good Morning America do is pure entertainment — in other words, not journalism by any stretch. But clips like the baby goat rescue show up on programs like The Nightly News as well, and the hosts rarely say anything about whether a clip is real or not. In some cases, these videos come right after a news report about something serious. How are audiences to know when something is “just entertainment” and therefore hasn’t been checked?

In another recent incident, a video purporting to show a golden eagle snatching a small child from a park went “viral” on the social web and showed up on a number of media outlets. It too turned out to be fake — the creation of some hard-working students in a computer-generated imagery course at a school in Montreal. The students deliberately chose something that seemed almost believable, based on “urban legends” of such incidents in the past.

We need to be careful what we amplify

Interestingly enough, the clip was debunked within hours of being uploaded, by another young programmer with some expertise in computer-generated imaging (as well as by other outlets such as Gawker, which pointed out obvious signs others could have noticed). But as with many corrections in a digital age, it took longer for the truth to propagate than it did the original video — and many of the outlets that shared the original didn’t bother to update their audience with the facts.

Om wrote recently about how one of the key responsibilities of journalists in this new age of “democratized distribution” of information is to pay attention to what they choose to amplify and what they don’t, and incidents like the baby goat video bring that home with a vengeance.

If all a media outlet is doing is sharing the latest video from Reddit or a tweet from a celebrity, how is that adding anything meaningful to what viewers can get elsewhere? It isn’t. And if traditional media continue to imitate their online competitors like BuzzFeed or Reddit without adding anything of value, then they will likely find that audiences are happy to go to the original source of that content rather than relying on the TV news to find it for them.

Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Shutterstock / Donskarpo

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No, a legal notice won’t protect you from Facebook — so stop posting them

Jeff John Roberts — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:38:11 +0000

Here we go again — Facebook users want to ward off Mark Zuckerberg and his friends by posting random legal mumbo jumbo on their profile. This is ridiculous. Stop it.

In case you missed it, an old hoax has resurfaced that suggests Facebook users can tell the company what to do by publishing a rambling notice. This means that people’s Facebook feeds are once again being sprayed by items like this one:

It’s a nice idea that stems from a growing frustration at the power companies like Facebook have over our personal information. The desire for user empowerment is understandable. But it doesn’t change the fact that you sign a contract with Facebook when you sign up to use its service. It’s the same with Google, Apple, Pinterest and many other sites.

These contracts let the companies do what they want with your data subject to applicable laws. As for your copyrights, they belong to you not Facebook — but you give the company a license to use them:

You can tell Facebook how it is all you like — and even demand Mark Zuckerberg give you his firstborn child if he doesn’t obey your demands. But that doesn’t mean your claims have any legal effect.

(Image by Anneka via Shutterstock)

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Paul Crik: Is He Real, Or a Trick?

Liz Shannon Miller — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 00:00:47 +0000

You and I, dear reader, we are not strangers to the strangeness of Planet Earth, and being on the Internet has made us even more familiar with all sorts of oddities. But every once in a while, you find yourself confronted with something so weird you think it must be weird on purpose. Guys, let’s talk about Killin’ It With Paul Crik.

Paul Crik is an self-help philosopher, based apparently in Montana, whose website and YouTube videos supposedly offer a 21st century approach to living the life you want.

His advice is illustrated on screen with “amazing” physical feats, beautiful mountain scenery and big poppy text; he offers up Zen koans for his followers like “This is it, f**k it, it is what it is.” He is, in short, entertaining but ridiculous.

But here’s the thing I can’t really be sure of — is it an act, or is it real? Both sides have weight.

The evidence for Paul Crik being a fake:

He’s just too good at this: On camera, Crik (if that’s his real name) is awfully entertaining — even when you have no clue what he’s actually saying, he manages to be personable and engaging. Those are the sorts of skills that you’re more likely to find in a trained actor than in a “expert on the human condition.”

Paul Crik doesn’t appear to exist in the real world: According to the official Paul Crik website, the reason you won’t find any info on Crik prior to the launch of the Killin’ It “life calling” is that in the summer of 2006: “He committed digital suicide. Every file, every photo, blog, accounting, record, email, cell phone account – every single electronic byte of information involving Paul Crik – was destroyed. He Killed it.” Riiiiiiiight. It’s a great story to explain why a fictional character doesn’t have a digital trail, but the greatest stories tend to be made up.

The Swearing at Children episode: Just watch it. It’s pure farce. (NSFW for language.)

He’s not making these videos alone: Killin’ It With Paul Crik is a Goatsilk production, which according to its official site is the work of the collaborative art duo Ben Bloch and Caroline Peters, who bring decent and constantly evolving production values to each short video. One wannabe guru acting alone — that’s believable. Multiple people buying into this theme — less so.

The evidence against:

Over a year is a long time to keep a joke going: The first Crik video appeared on YouTube in July 2009; since then, 74 videos have been produced and uploaded, with views never really popping. The YouTube channel has received 66,700 approximate views total, with the most-viewed video topping out at 15,000 and most never crossing the thousand mark. There’s something adorably earnest about that kind of persistence.

And if it’s satire, it’s missing the mark: The “Killin’ It” concept is funny for a while, but there doesn’t seem to be any deeper point to what they’re trying to achieve than simply creating a strange character and letting him rant. However, if Crik is in fact a highly motivated public speaker looking to connect with his audience, though, then Killin’ It makes more sense.

Goatsilk might actually be true believers: On their website, their themes include: “immateriality, magic, cheap ugliness and human/animal consciousness.” Crik’s blunt approach to metaphysics seems like it could appeal to the right kind of artistic crowd.

It’s a really weird world out there: And while Crik is weird, he is hardly the weirdest thing in it.

What do you think, though — fact or fiction? Sound off in the comments!

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): Shattering the Fourth Wall To Find Web Audiences

How To Pop Popcorn With a Cell Phone: Revealed!

Liz Shannon Miller — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 04:00:12 +0000

Remember last month, when a surge of viral videos made us all wonder how you could pop popcorn with cell phones? It was quickly discovered that the campaign was created to promote Cardo Systems’s line of Bluetooth headsets, but there were no answers as to how they were actually performing the trick (just theories that required disassembling your microwave). That is, until today, when CNN turned its attentions to the phenomenon.

If you can make it through CNN’s lowest-common-denominator coverage (please, Jason Carroll, explain again what a viral video is?), Cardo Systems CEO Abraham Glezerman explains the trickery behind the hoax. Here’s a handy guide to the Cardo-approved method, in five easy steps:

Set the scene: unpopped kernels, cell phones of various makes and models, giggling teenagers
Air-pop a few popcorn kernels on your stove
While filming, drop the popped kernels onto the table from above
Digitally erase the unpopped kernels from the footage, and add sound effects
Upload, and get ready to sell some Bluetooth headsets

Despite not believing it from the beginning, I’m still a little sad to learn that a cool visual effect was faked. What’s next — Matt Harding admits to blue-screening his way around the world? Say it ain’t so.

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NTV Station Today: Popcorn and Cell Phones, Explained; Kobe Bryant, Dissed

Liz Shannon Miller — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:39:11 +0000

It probably comes as little surprise that those videos using cell phones to pop popcorn were actually viral advertising — but for who? And how did they actually manage to pop those kernels? Today at the Station we not only track down the people responsible for the phenomenon, we also find a video that purports to solve the trick. But do you have a better theory? Don’t be afraid to speak up!

Elsewhere on the web, footage of Shaquille O’Neal’s now-infamous anti-Kobe freestyle rap found its way online, thanks to the philanthropists at TMZ — and this clip may cost Shaq his sheriff’s deputy badge.

Meanwhile, the Jonas Brothers bring their tween dream power to the United Kingdom, finding an unlikely fan in Her Majesty the Queen. And Neil Cicierega released a very strange Harry Potter video — but if you’re going to watch a Harry Potter video, you should check out our Potter Puppet Pals review from this Sunday, which features more singing — and fewer 2 girls 1 cup references. Don’t thank me. Thank the Station.

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