Today, I am beginning what I anticipate will become a regular series of short interviews with web personalities. These short, three-question typewritten interviews will be cross-posted here and to the University of Washington’s Master of Communication in Digital Media’s blog, FlipTheMedia.com. I want to answer the question: How are these well-known new media or Internet personalities changing the face of media? What are they doing to “flip the media”, as we say in the MCDM program? Generally, I will ask the same three questions of each person interviewed. So, as you read below, you will be able to see what those questions will regularly cover. My first subject is Drew Curtis, founder of the popular on-line news aggregator FARK.com.
Image from NPR.org
Drew Curtis is the creator of the on-line news headline aggregation and social news sharing site FARK.com. According to the site, Fark began in 1997 as a vanity site where Curtis posted an obnoxious but humorous picture of a well-endowed squirrel. I’ll say no more about the squirrel. In 1999, Curtis converted the site in to a place that readers could share news articles from across the web with one another. It was a way to get the news-consuming public to share perspectives and expose the often deplorable practice of journalists reporting “news” that simply doesn’t warrant the privilege of being called “news”. ‘Fark’ was a word Curtis coined to label the glut of sales and publicity-driven non-news that’s out there. Submitters to the site can re-write their own witty headlines and attach them to the articles they’ve linked, and forum threads for each article are established for people to leave commentary and engage in discussion. These threads themselves are often a hotbed of meme-centric content and image sharing as well as opinion-shaping commentary. Social media sites like Fark are changing not only the way people develop, share, and communicate opinions on topical subjects, but they’ve also proved the web’s power to help filter the real from the rubbish. As the site’s ‘About‘ page spells out, CNN and Fox News are two of the biggest corporate entities to traffic the site. Perhaps journalists at both of those networks are watching the things users of Fark are saying about the very stories they publish. Without a doubt, Fark has established itself as a major player in on-line journalism. Below are the three questions I sent Curtis, and his candid responses.
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