Hi,

A good media topic for you to procrastilearn over this week, plus my ramblings elsewhere. As always, I hope you find something useful or entertaining inside.

My daily writing challenge

As mentioned in the last issue, I'm doing the Ship 30 for 30 course again. It involves posting a short essay or thread on social media every day for 30 days.

I haven't attended any of its accompanying live sessions this time round, but somehow I won a mug during one in my absence, which I am quite excited and confused about.

With this new set of 30 essays, I'm trying to take a serious angle and am even using procrastilearning as a theme. So far I’m mostly just writing about self-care when procrastinating, as we can often beat ourselves up about it, which isn’t particularly helpful.

If you're interested, this is what I've published so far:

• Why I'm writing about letting yourself "procrastilearn" without guilt

• 3 Reasons Why Your Brain Wants You To Procrastinate

• Creativity & Procrastination: Two Sides of the Same Coin

• 3 Factors That Trigger Guilt & Shame When Procrastilearning

• How to Make the Most of Procrastination

If you want to support me in the challenge, please do give any of these posts a like or a retweet, as it helps others see them and increases the feedback I might get.

It's going okay so far, but I’m still sure that my best ever Ship 30 for 30 essay was my "How to Sleep Like a Baby" one from last year:

And yes, I'm posting these all on Twitter/X. I can't bring myself to put these things on LinkedIn or Facebook too, but maybe one day.

Podcasters are the most trusted US media people now

Apparently so, according to this survey.

The survey was done by Acast, a podcast company, so a pinch of salt might be needed, but it still seems pretty provocative if true. I must admit comedy bro Joe Rogan does strike me as more trustworthy than any of those Fox News people.

By this logic, if you are a US media person, you pretty much have to start a podcast or Youtube channel to increase your trustworthiness. Lots have done this already, such as Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly. Although admittedly O'Reilly only started a podcast because he got fired after his history of sexual misconduct became public - I'm not sure if a podcast could make anybody more trustworthy after that... (Not that O’Reilly ever seemed trustworthy:)

In the UK, there's a really good example of mainstream types moving into podcasting. Last year, The News Agents appeared, hosted by Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall. They were all well-established mainstream journalists but now they’re courting the online crowd. Within about half a year, it became the UK's most popular daily news podcast, beating all the presenters' former employers’ efforts. An impressive feat.

Does this make what they're doing now more trustworthy in the public's eye? Perhaps the reduction in formality makes them more relatable, for one, but otherwise, it's hard to say.

In recent years Russell Brand moved away from mainstream media too, but was recently caught up in scandals about his behaviour. I am pretty sure his trustworthiness has gone downhill, regardless of how relatable and charming he might seem taking wild conspiracy theories seriously and courting the right wing on his Rumble channel. (As an aside, below you’ll find a recent clip from The News Agents talking about Brand:)

@thenewsagents

Emily Maitlis on her interview with Russell Brand and how he knew when she was “editing” him #russellbrand #comedy #news #comedian #women #news #2023

What I find most interesting about all this is that podcasting and YouTube and its clones are enabling small media companies to compete fairly with legacy media monopolies. After all, over 2 and half billion people use YouTube, while the BBC reaches around a fifth of that (if you include its websites and world radio), and getting onto YouTube is easy.

These mini-media splits are creating a more fractured landscape that mirrors the more fractured way we consume media as a society. No longer will the Christmas special of any sitcom get the 24.3 million viewers that Only Fools and Horses did in 1996. (Unexpectedly, Nicolas Lyndhurst has now started appearing in a different 90s sitcom.)

Here's a great recent snapshot from Ofcom if you want to dig deeper. My favourite nugget is that 16-24 year olds now watch less TV than 4-15 year olds - but they’re smashing through an hour of TikTok every day.

That's all for this week. Thank you for reading. Remember to look before you lean (I bet you can guess what that link goes to before you click on it).

Adam

Adam Zulawski
Procrastilearning.com / More stuff

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