I get that everybody’s trying to hop on the video bandwagon now since ad CPMs are so much higher than for non-video Web ads. The Wall Street Journal has The News Hub. The New York Times is planning a regular newscast.
But do we really need The Bullet from The Big Money—”a fast, wry look at the biggest and funniest news stories of the day… Like a condensed version of The Daily Show”? Not from its inauspicious start.
Thing is, “The Daily Show” has a stable of writers who are funny comedians and The Big Money, already mostly uninteresting in its straight journalism (One of my favorite pieces, a classic in the genre of debunking-something-no-one’s-ever-said, was headlined “Why Gardening Won’t End the Recession”), does not. Which is why you get painful stuff like this from host Rachel Feldman about a hybrid Ferrari:
This is a disturbing marriage of mid-life crisis and eco-friendliness. What’s next? Viagra made from hemp? Solar-powered Rogaine?
The silly sound effects don’t help. Nor does this, about economist Peter Morici (emphasis mine):
But listen: Avoid the bowtie because nobody ever got a job looking like a dork.
Nyuk nyuk. And anyway: Untrue! I’m living proof:
(UPDATE TO ADD photo credit: my friend Reid Epstein. Don’t ask me why he wants it!)
Speaking of uncool, why does The Big Money think it’s funny to laugh at somebody who’s underemployed and has crappy health insurance, as it does here?
Unfortunately—and I know The Bullet is only one day old (hey, they put it out there)—it resembles nothing so much as the cringeworthy NewsBusted put out by the right-wing Media Research Center. If you’ve never treated yourself to that, well… have a look:
Hey, at least The Bullet doesn’t have those hilariously bad laugh tracks.
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.