MTV News gets postmortem from The New Yorker

in hindsight, it seems obvious why this venture into longform journalism would fail, not least bc MTV has close relationships with so many artists and the writers were essentially defanged.

Tough to be Rolling Stone when babies like
Chance the Rapper and Kings of Leon can get your stories pulled for writing things that are less than glowing.

Astonishing to me that Dan Fierman and the woman from Pitchfork would not have known about the landscape or could have predicted it.

MTV News and the Threats to Negative Criticism

Btw, the story by the Nation that is linked in this piece might have the longest editor's note I've ever seen, copping to many factorial and judgment errors. Still, that essay is a decently illuminating read, too.

Fierman doesn't come off too hot, but he also doesn't respond to any requests for comment, so that's the danger.

 

Music criticism is marshmallow soft. Has been for a long time.

 

A guy best known for a Kit Kat ad wields enough power to pull the strings at MTV? What a fucking joke.

 

What's the Nation link? I didn't see it.

 

The Rebirth of MTV News

Sorry, it was actually linked in the Spin article that was linked in the New Yorker piece.

 

If you think that Chance is best known for a Kit Kat commercial, then this discussion ain't for you.

 

I'll decide what discussions are for me, sport.

 

He was featured in CNN's documentary series Chicagoland, which aired three years ago. He's only gotten bigger since.

 

I can't imagine a more depressing professional moment than finding out your writing's been axed by a band that non-ironically penned the lyric This sex is on fire.

 

If you want good press, don't get so wasted that you pass out four songs into your set in Dallas, Caleb.

 

I saw Kings of Leon last year at MSG and I was impressed. I feared they wouldn't sound as good live as they do on recording. Not the case. "Crawl," in particular, sounded awesome. And seeing a whole bunch of hot, sweaty women singing "Sex on Fire" does not suck.

 

MTV Mines the Past for Its Future: ‘Total Request Live’