Aram Zucker-Scharff

Just attaching ‘gate’ to the end of every controversial thing that pops into the news is bullshit, historically blind, and beyond insulting. There’s no way for the audience to understand that they should be concerned about something unless you attach ‘gate’ to the end of it?

The repeated use and assumptions involved in ‘*-gate’-ing things is like the ultimate media-to-audience insult. By doing so, media outlets assume you don’t know what Watergate was and you’re too stupid to understand why a topic should make you furious unless they ‘gate’ it. Even worse… it implies that unless someone attaches -gate to the end of something, it’s not really a big deal. Too bad there’s no finance-crisis-gate, gun-deaths-gate, or ebola-gate, apparently, they’re not worth caring about.

Adding -gate assumes your audience is idiots, robs them of any need to understand history, and devalues other coverage. It’s incredibly condescending. Don’t do it.

I didn’t care about Amanda Knox then, I don’t care about her now. The Mainstream Media should never have covered that case on that scale, they should never have done that coverage in the way they did, and they sure as hell shouldn’t have been passing judgement. 

Now we have to have even more valuable air time wasted as they try to make up for being assholes by covering what assholes they were, ALL WITHOUT TAKING ANY BLAME ON THEMSELVES. 

Take Nancy Grace and put her into some local access channel. Ban cameras from court rooms. Open up libel cases on any reporter who strongly implies that someone is guilty before they are actually found guilty. 

Seriously, screw these assholes who have made a name off of accusing random people on air, calling for their heads, and facing no real punishment when they are found innocent. 

““The bundle is the Gibraltar of the media business,” said Tim Wu, the author of “The Master Switch,” a history of media revolutions. “It keeps the entire ecosystem alive, which is why it is so heavily and successfully defended. But there are hairline fractures beginning to appear, and you are seeing alliances shift.””

– At NYT, David Carr explains why the long standing ‘bundle’ system for delivering advertising on many platforms (especially cable TV) is now failing and why the consequences for TV may be immense. 

WOW: ‘The Daily Show’ Investigation, Investigating Whatever Happened To Investigative Journalism: “CNN eliminated their entire investigative [journalism] unit.” >.