My life as a global media juggernaut
It’s evidently my week for total media domination. Not only are my latkes experiencing international exposure through the Boston Globe, I’ve finally made it onto The Daily Show. At least that’s what I hear: connectivity’s a little spotty here in Delhi, so I’m relying on the flood of emails I’ve gotten, and a post on The Third Path which has a transcript of the bit I appear in.
The piece is an attempt by the ever-helpful Samatha Bee to give a makeover of Al-Jazeera International so that it’s more interesting to an American audience - she ends up suggesting they spend less time on news, and more time talking about kittens. There’s a quick clip of me talking about search engine censorship on the “Listening Post” show, a clip I recorded via webcam and sent in for a pilot of the show. It’s an illustration of AJI’s problem - that it’s content is so boring, Sam is forced to smoke a joint to make it more interesting. I’m glad that, of all the talking heads who’ve appeared on the new network, I’m the one the Daily Show feels best illustrates pomposity and boredom…
Just wait until tomorrow’s Global Voices meeting turns into a riot and you see my face all over the Indian media as I’m trampled to death by a horde of multinational bloggers…
Heh. It’s even better! My comment gets Samantha Bee to throw her joint away and leave in disgust! Thanks to Janet for the link…
December 15th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
I’m the one the Daily Show feels best illustrates …boredom
It’s your own fault, Ethan. I bet you used words longer than two syllables. Bee has her finger on the pulse of the modern attention span….
December 16th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Fortunately, Ethan, YouTube is our friend. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2nNuX3fEhw
December 16th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
I’ve seen the clip, i liked how our staff went with the joke …
December 17th, 2006 at 2:06 am
[...] Ethan Zuckerman — my former colleague at Tripod, co-founder of Global Voices and current Board member of The People, Yes — is a brilliant guy… and apparently has what it takes to drive Samantha Bee of The Daily Show mad: [...]
December 21st, 2006 at 7:18 pm
YouTube removed the video at Comedy Central’s request, but if you tell us the name of the segment, it should be possible to find the video at comedycentral.com. Unfortunately they don’t make it easy to find things by date, only by show & segment name (which you sometimes have to guess at).
December 21st, 2006 at 8:25 pm
aha, here it is!
December 26th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
You know the old phrase: any publicity about web censorship in China is good publicty