Month: January 2015

Hank Green Says It’s Not OK for the Mainstream Media to Snipe at YouTube Stars

Trish
Bethany Mota's post-interview selfie
Bethany Mota’s post-interview selfie

If you missed it in the post-game coverage of the recent State of the Union speech, Pres. Obama broke new ground beyond perfecting presidential ad libs. He also agreed to one-on-one interviews with three YouTube stars, and one of them, Hank Green, isn’t happy with the way the “legacy” press corps treated the endeavor. Green’s article, posted on Medium, is titled “Holy Shit, I Interviewed the President.” It might have been better named, “Holy Shit, the Mainstream Media is Killing Democracy.”

Green: How does a democracy function with no credible system for informing its citizens?

CNN intro’d and outro’d every segment with Glozell [Green] in a bathtub full of cereal, as did ABC’s morning show…Even new media companies like Vice were dismissive:

“Think of it as a teeny-bopper AMA…The interviewers will be GloZell Green, who’s perhaps best known for sitting in a tub full of cereal; a 19-year-old who gives beauty advice named Bethany Mota; and Hank Green, a notorious YouTube ranter whose brother wrote The Fault in Our Stars.”

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Bush Offers Donors a Price List

Buck Banks

$500,000

Amount Republican Jeb Bush is telling donors they they must raise by March 31 to join his “national executive committee,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “A pledge form for Mr. Bush’s newly formed Right to Rise political committee offers other levels of membership: donors who collect $250,000 by March 31 can join the ‘national committee,’ $100,000 to join the ‘state executive committee’ and $50,000 for the ‘state committee.’”

Chris Christie has Received 77 Diet Books

Buck Banks

77

Number of books about the topics of diet, exercise, bariatric surgery or self-help weight loss that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) has received since he’s been in office. “The records show that gift-givers have seen fit to shower the governor with virtually every diet book, CD, DVD and weight loss kit available,” the Newark Star Ledger reports.