The Guardian is going to stream The Wire (here) because they like it.
Remember that the Guardian also put itself on the podcast map with more entertainment: Ricky Gervais’ record-setting podcast. Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, once joked that if he had gone to the Scotts Trust, which owns the paper, a dozen years ago when he sought he job saying that he had a vision for the future organization that involved making comedy radio shows listened to on computers and gadget, he never would have gotten the job. But Gervais was a watershed moment in the multimediaing (sorry) of the paper.
Note also that a week ago, the Mail on Sunday had a gigantic bump in sales when it distributed Prince’s new CD.
I’m sure out there somewhere there’s a grizzled journalist who’s growling about getting news too close to entertainment. Whoever he is, he should get over it. It’s media. These bit of entertainment are just more ways to chronicle life. And they’re clearly good for business, which is good for the journalism.
It’s time for the New York Times to produce the Seinfeld of the age. If they had a sense of humor.
