You’ve probably noticed a trend of user-generated content. It works well on the Internet, but lately the trend has spread to TV, borrowing Internet-produced content to fill 30 minutes of airtime. VH1’s Web Junk pulled it off—that is, if you’re not a big Internet surfer and/or happened to miss a particular clip. (I’d say I’d seen 60% of the junk they dished out.) More recently, CNN’s Headline News jumped on the bandwagon with News to Me: a “news” program dedicated to stories submitted by viewers.

News to Me (which I watched over the weekend and which prompted this post) is a good concept in theory—though MTV tried a similar show format several years back that apparently didn’t stand the test of time. However, the bulk of the show was filled with Internet clips. They showed a portion of a Flash fight animation which was definitely entertaining—when I watched it on my computer a year ago—but is that newsworthy? 

They also referenced a clip available on YouTube about an unexpectedly moving high school speech titled “The ‘R’ Word.” At no time did they mention what the speech was about. The “news” story centered around the popularity of the clip rather than the content of the clip (which I inferred was about the often insensitive use of the word “retard”). I had hoped that this was a well-planned strategy to generate interest and pull traffic to the website, but there was no reference to the clip on the show’s page. Very disappointing.

So why bother broadcasting an Internet clip that has already been viewed by millions of people if you’re not going to communicate the point of the video? Are the simple facts that the popularity of the clip spread like wildfire and millions of people have viewed the clip online enough to call it news? If I managed to get a few million people to click on a link to a picture of my cat, would they put it on the news? Sadly, it seems they would!

Look, I know the Internet is still evolving, but by design millions of people are likely to consume any given content. If you’re gonna bridge the gap for the mere hundreds of thousands of people who don’t connect on a daily basis, at least make an attempt at making it informative. Or don’t call it news.