I indulge this vice of mine today when I decide to turn on "American Morning". And on this American Morning, I am greeted by Veronica De La Cruz, who serves as CNN's "Internet Correspondent" (This is officially my new favorite title, although if it were me, I totally would have talked The Network into something more grandiose but equally meaningful, such as "Ambassador to the Digital Media" or "Web Czar"). She's explaining that this is a follow-up to a story The Network has cleverly dubbed "Snow Day Phone Call" (you can view the segment here). If I might editorialize for a moment (because the rest of this is obviously hard news reporting): this is DELICIOUS (almost delicious enough to post on del.icio.us). Such a morning treat. It's like skipping the Oat Bran and starting my day with three chocolate éclairs.
I particularly enjoy the way in which Ms. De La Cruz owns (or for you internet correspondents out there, pwns) this story right from the start. Her delivery of "...That he posted..................................................on The Internet", features just the right ratio of dramatic pause to peaking intonation, perfectly illuminating how this story has fallen into her domain (no pun intended).
Ms. De La Cruz further enhances her performance through use of dramatic irony, as she explains to us that the youngster who posted this "even seemed a little annoyed about all the calls that HE was getting from the media.............. on HIS home phone." Watch out Stone Phillips!
To be fair, it was this lad himself who posted this voicemail message on YoutTube; and Ms. De La Cruz does acknowledge his point that there are other more important stories in the world that are probably more worthy of attention than this. But what fun is fair?! NONE. Luckily, our Ambassador to the Internet is fully aware of this, and is equally quick to justify the story by explaining that "it seems like people are still interested" (I think this should be CNN's new company slogan: "CNN. IT SEEMS LIKE PEOPLE ARE STILL INTERESTED").
But by far my favorite moment of this piece is when our CNN sponsored Internet Tour Guide tells us that their original segment on this story, posted on youtube, has been viewed over 8,500 times. Now although that might not seem all the impressive, just look at how impressive it becomes when you boldface, change text size, and hold for effect.....................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................................
....8,500 TIMES!
See? Now it's big news.
Inevitably we've now introduced a comparative numbers game, which is of course the goal of all major news networks. In case you are wondering what other YouTube items are tantamount in views to this clip boasted by CNN, I've taken the liberty of performing a search and coming up with a few random samplings. And if you aren't wondering... Well I've already gone through the effort, and you've come this far, so why not take a look:
For the record, "Cake Flushing" is actually far more popular than "Snow Day Phone Call", with almost three times as many views. Maybe it's all in the title. Or perhaps CNN will soon begin airing more videos featuring cakes and toilets - which is probably on par with their curent programming. Either way, this whole sordid affair can probably be summed up best by a quote from a viewer read on the air by Ms. De La Cruz:
Thankfully, those attributes - like the common sense to separate a real news story from meaningless fluff, and the self control and composure to report on real issues like, gee I dunno, the presidential primaries, or Darfur - are not applicable to broadcast media. And I for one am happy about that. It gives me a chance to indulge one of my vices, while at the same time making me realize that in comparison, mine aren't all that bad.
Oh and one last item: while snowballing is a term frequently used to describe the nature of viral media, it also refers to this.
