CNN Watch - Popular Stories

What kind of disgusting shit is this? As you may have noticed, CNN revamped their Web site for a cleaner, leaner look. The site also now features a prominent position for 'Popular News,' a portion of the front page devoted to most-viewed stories. Surely this is generated by an algorithm, but what does it say about CNN's readers/viewers that one of the most popular stories is 'Girl disemboweled in pool'? With video no less?

The fact that CNN even allows such lurid headlines over the transom suggests tabloid sensationalism. And its juxtaposition with the story 'Men, women about equally chatty' gives a powder-puff of a story the same weight as one family's tragedy. The accidental placement in 'Popular Stories' of a story that shouldn't have been covered at all, is offensive and disgusting. CNN may want to rethink it's section designation if stories like this are going to end up under such an unfortunate label.

Amanda Congdon Really Sells Out

I wonder if Amanda Congdon, fomerly of Rocketboom, expected any blowback from doing these DuPont commercials? Industrial chemicals don't really seem like her kind of product. By contrast, Dove’s ad campaign is a better fit. She's a young, well-endowed, attractive, woman. Acting as a spokesperson for what is essentially a beauty product makes total sense for her. But DuPont and Amanda make a strange juxtaposition. This could be what's causing the current hubbub.

Personally, I have essential problems with DuPont’s business practices, its corporate ethics, political influence, and its status as a world polluter. But that's not the point here. Despite a concerted effort by their PR team, DuPont has had, and continues to have, chronic problems with pollution. Since Amanda Congdon is on the record as a supporter of things ‘green’ it makes you seem like a disingenuous spokesperson to do their web spots.

Her self-defense on her blog seems to be digging her deeper and deeper into an ethically compromised hole, claiming that because she is not an official journalist (she's a blogger thank-you-very-much) she doesn't have to follow the ethical guidelines that hedge in the mainstream media. Instead, she feels can write her own rulebook, redefine her own paradigms, and pretty much get away with anything she wants to do. To me this attitude doesn't represent the vanguard of new media, but the tactic of a selfish opportunist who is justifying actions she already knows are questionable by retroactively changing the context in which she originally made her decisions.

It's clearly a bluff, she probably doesn't believe herself either. Her actions speak too loudly. By associating herself with DuPont, Amanda Congdon is clearly in it for the money.

The Work of a Subversive Graphic Designer?

Like many read William Burroughs as a teenager, I have a healthy obsession with the number 23, a number which seems to reoccur in history and popular culture. Skeptics say that its seeming frequency is due to that fact that we are looking for it, pick any other number and you'll see it pop up in the newspaper with shocking regularity. But those of us in the know have experimented, observed, and tested...and there certainly seems to be something to it. But this post isn't about that, it's about the upcoming movie 23 with Jim Carrey.

Take a look at the selection from the movie poster. Do you see what I see? Maybe it's like the number itself and I am imagining something that really isn't there, but that little alphabetic squiggle just above Carrey's left eyebrow certainly looks suspicious. Somewhere, a graphic designer might be smirking at his juvenile prank...or maybe I can only see it because I'm looking for it.

Why did ABC Hire Amanda?

Have you seen Amanda Congdon's new show on ABC? Not much different than what she did with Rocketboom, eh? Now I remember what irritated me about the show: the faux perkiness, bad jokes and insincere mugging for the camera. But at least ABC knows what sells. Check out that screen capture that ABC is using to promote the show. Why do you think they chose that particular shot? A few months ago Jason Calacanis said that Ms. Congdon was at the "top of the talent pool on the Web." Take some time to watch her newest efforts and decide for yourself where here best assets lie.

Liberal Opinion Can Be Bought

Over at the Huffington Post we find a section in which Ariana and a handful of the site's celebrity bloggers endorse the Toyota's Prius, a hybrid vehicle. The section is sponsored by Toyota.

In the advertisement, Bill Mahr says that driving a hybrid is about "terrorism and the environment." Ariana says that driving the Japanese-made vehicle is "patriotic." Both of these ideas are reprehensible tactics intended to motivate the purchase of a consumer product.

It's pretty clear that these manipulative opinions have been purchased by Toyota's ad dollars, yet they are being presented as unvarnished opinion. After all there are other hybrids out there, so why endorse just one corporation's offering?

Unbiased liberal opinion, my ass. By doing this the HuffPo just looks like a shill for any company with deep pockets. Keep your eyes open.