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CNN is launching a show built for Twitter called Your 15 Second Morning, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Fifteen seconds! But will it have a 30-second pre-roll ad?
If that’s not exciting enough, there’s this from what’s ostensibly still the Cable News Network:
Beyond that show, which executives hope will become a daily habit among younger news consumers, CNN has lined up some top talent for a slew of original franchise series of the news/entertainment variety.
For example, there’s Related with Dave Franco, which will focus on celebrity siblings (Mr. Franco’s brother is actor James Franco). That show is a co-production with Funny or Die. Turner Broadcasting, the Time Warner Inc. unit which houses CNN, is an investor in Funny or Die.
Several projects have yet to be nailed down, but one potential CNN Web series will likely feature an ex NFL player examining productivity in people’s lives. Another is said to star a hot young urban chef who is a protege of Anthony Bourdain, who of course headlines his own show for CNN on TV.
Seriously, CNN?
— Bloomberg News reports on a retirement speech given by SEC trial attorney James Kidney that just scorches the agency on his way out:
The SEC has become “an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors,” Kidney said, according to a copy of his remarks obtained by Bloomberg News. “On the rare occasions when enforcement does go to the penthouse, good manners are paramount. Tough enforcement, risky enforcement, is subject to extensive negotiation and weakening”…
Kidney said his superiors were more focused on getting high-paying jobs after their government service than on bringing difficult cases. The agency’s penalties, Kidney said, have become “at most a tollbooth on the bankster turnpike”…
“I have had bosses, and bosses of my bosses, whose names we all know, who made little secret that they were here to punch their ticket,” Kidney said. “They mouthed serious regard for the mission of the commission, but their actions were tentative and fearful in many instances.”
Kidney had some words about the press too, which you can read here:
The only other item I want to be serious about, besides some personal observations in a minute, is the metric of the division of enforcement: number
of cases brought. It is a cancer. It should be changed. I have suggested to our higher ups on several occasions starting a discussion about factors we-after Monday, you–should weigh in evaluating investigations to be sure our resources are being well-spent and properly distributed. It has gone nowhere. One argument against change is that the press and congress are welded to our own anvil. But I submit that there are not more than a dozen reporters who matter covering the Commission, and about the same number of Hill staffers. I imagine they would welcome coming to an educational event about the Division’s new metric, one which focuses on quality, not quantity. Who could be against it? Goodness knows we spend millions promoting even our emptiest achievements. Why not promote a new metric that will be sensible and helpful.
— I’d call this Washington Post piece a bogus trend story if it weren’t for the fact that I command-tabbed, got up, and switched browser tabs at least 15 times before I managed to make it through the whole thing:
The Internet is different. With so much information, hyperlinked text, videos alongside words and interactivity everywhere, our brains form shortcuts to deal with it all — scanning, searching for key words, scrolling up and down quickly. This is nonlinear reading, and it has been documented in academic studies. Some researchers believe that for many people, this style of reading is beginning to invade when dealing with other mediums as well.
Ryan Chittum is a former Wall Street Journal reporter, and deputy editor of The Audit, CJR’s business section. If you see notable business journalism, give him a heads-up at rc2538@columbia.edu. Follow him on Twitter at @ryanchittum.“We’re spending so much time touching, pushing, linking, scrolling and jumping through text that when we sit down with a novel, your daily habits of jumping, clicking, linking is just ingrained in you,” said Andrew Dillon, a University of Texas professor who studies reading. “We’re in this new era of information behavior, and we’re beginning to see the consequences of that.”
