The Deacon's Bench
Media Bistro reported last week on a media summit featuring ABC News anchor David Muir. Tweets from the event reveal some of the editorial thinking now leading one of America’s premiere newscasts.
Evidently it is the viewing public—which this morning is trending stories on Facebook about a man eaten alive by a snake and Bobby Moynihan’s performance as Princess Leia on SNL—which is helping determine news content.
In recent weeks, ABC News has launched a social media “newscast” posted to Facebook on weekdays, and used “curated” news alerts to send 10 million alerts–without overwhelming users–on Election Night.
According to participants who tweeted David Muir’s comments, he believes social media has allowed viewers to have unprecedented involvement in making “World News” the kind of newscast they want. “I like the idea of handing over the power to them,” he said. “What’s fascinating is that our viewers are dictating where we take the stories.”
Muir does not see social media platforms like Twitter as a means of driving viewers to watch the legacy newscast. Instead, he says, “It’s to signal to them I’m like you, and hopefully you’re like me.”
We’re doomed.
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