YourWeek: I Hope PBS Is Ready for Undersexed Housewives at Disney
by
on May 21, 2008,
I may be heading toward a future as a Steven Hodson acolyte, because I'm starting to feel a little bit too cranky about some of the latest entrants into the Web 2.0 space. I'm all about democracy in site creation and user-generated content, but I guess I draw the line at letting the unwashed masses mess with my PBS content.
I'm really thinking about not renewing my annual donation based on the concept of YourWeek, a weekly television program whose content will be generated by the top stories on Reddit. No, I'm not kidding; I'm not feeling creative enough to have come up with something like that on my own. Funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (and viewers like you!), the show is coming out of WETA, Washington, DC, and can be seen online at yourweek.reddit.
The concept of the show (which has already filmed its pilot episode) involves covering the stories that make reddit's front page. During the week between shows, users will be able to follow up at the show's site, contributing thoughts on corrections, missing content, and comments about the show. As the reddit blog states:
"Meta discussions about that content and the show itself will all take place at yourweek.reddit, so please submit all your wittiest and smartest comments there."
I'm getting a bit concerned about the glorification of meta as an art form, much less as something PBS is involved with. I look to PBS content for breaking news and coverage of stories I might not find anywhere else. I'm not sure if I'm really interested in the exploits of a former Jack Sparrow at Disney's come-ons from sex-starved housewives*.
* #2 on the reddit home page as of the time of this post
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Svetlana Gladkova
Bighorn
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
A Steven Hodson acolyte … ROFLMAO … thanks Cyndy as with how today has been this chuckle couldn’t have come at a better time.
I wouldn’t worry too much as it’s just one show. As long as it’s not just the parroting of Reddit top links, I think it’s an interesting experiment to choose stories for more in-depth coverage by watching a somewhat democratic list of stories.
It’s much better than when they were experimenting with what is popularly known as “adding balance” (i.e. adding right-wing crazy talk) when they added that bow-tie guy. Can’t remember his name at the moment & don’t want to. Tucker-something.
I agree with you - democracy is great, and what makes the web great, but there’s also plenty to be said for a trusted editorial hand. Not *everything* needs to be decided by the lowest common denominator.
@Steven Some of this stuff just can’t help but make me downright cranky.
@James It’s just one show, but my concern is that this is going to be the lazy person’s way of creating show content. As we’ve seen with “reality” television, cheap and simple is rapidly become the way of the world at the expense of quality content.
@Jen Absolutely. And the lowest common denominator seems to be getting lower all the time.