Vlog: Year-end media cliches
: Here’s a vlog on the media’s — especially TV’s — parade of cliches that come at the end of every year.
Go to www.screenblast.com/buzzmachine.com.
Here’s the script (click on “more” if you can bear it):
If you want to worry about the state of news media today — if you want to fret that news is turning into a commodity — all you have to do is watch TV news or read papers at the end of a year and you will see the worst — the most predictable — media cliches replayed again and again.
Since this is the season of lists, I give you my list of year-end news cliches:
1. The pre-Christmas shopping story: Will retailers make their numbers? We’ll see!
2. The White Christmas story: Will it snow? I dunno. We’ll see!
3. The bonus snow story: If it actually does snow, what does the city do? It sands… It salts… It plows… It digs out.
4. The holiday driving story:
If we don’t remind you to be careful out there, you may forget and kill yourself!
5. The POST-Christmas shopping story: Surprise! It’s the busiest shopping day of the year! Now THAT’S news.
6. The year-end tax story: If you didn’t know that you should give to charity and sell some stock before the end of the year, well then you’re probably too poor to worry about it anyway.
7. The pre-New Year’s story: Times Square gets ready to drop that ball…
8. The holiday driving story, redux: In case you didn’t listen the last time, we’ll tell you again: Drive carefully!
9. The hangover story: If you drink too much on New Year’s Eve, here’s what do to about it on New Year’s Day.
But if you’re that brain-dead, why do we want you in our demographic, anyway?
10. Finally, the year-end list, in which editors chose the top stories … even though no one asked them to.
And that’s the way it is in media, year-end after stultifying year.
