The Takeaway’s VeepStakes on Facebook
The new morning radio multi-platform news program The Takeaway, partially funded by Knight, has recently introduced a game on Facebook (the popular social networking service) called VeepStakes.
Takeaway Web Editor Adnaan Wasey explains the game:
If you already have a Facebook profile, you can start playing the game here.
Look for more seriously fun content from The Takeaway team soon–what do you think about VeepStakes, and what would you like to see the show do more of online?
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August 20th, 2008 at 7:18 am
I hear you sponsor the Takeaway for ‘excellence in journalism’.
Many of us just do not get how the Takeaway is ‘excellence’. I know this because of the number of comments on WNYC’s website from my neighbors in NYC.
The format banter may appeal to Gen Y, but the entire notion of a ‘takeaway’ , which I do hear all the time in meetings with young colleagues and staff, seems to negate the importance of understanding complexity and perhaps just perhaps the possibility that there just isn’t going to be an easy ‘takeaway’ without some hard investigative work and time.
I just don’t understand how this program and your use of tax-exempt money to fund it (along with Gates) addresses the issue we face in the US of short attention spans and lack of willingness for citizens to invest in oversight of our political and business processes.
Is it to bridge between the Daily Show and Colbert Report and more in-depth NPR or Democracy Now formats?
I totally agree we need alternatives to the current failed FCC enabled ‘market-forces’ for broadcast ‘news’ which seem to only be able to profitably deliver ‘news entertainment’ formats.
Unfortunately, the mess we’re in now as a Nation is directly correlated to lack of involvement by ordinary voters in oversight of their elected officials and the Corporate Lobbyists who bribe them, all obfuscated by the FCC enabled “news” system that doesn’t meet voters’ needs for real information and access. Funding a Democracy Now format for Gen Y seems like it would be smarter than this, and offer something that isn’t already out there.
I do laud you for your efforts to help communities address these issues, but the Takeaway on NPR, I just don’t get.
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Thanks for your comment, Albertine.
Knight Foundation is always looking for new and innovative ways to reach new audiences, and we do fund The Takeaway.
Maybe The Takeaway’s site can offer more context on how they position the show in the current universe of content; I would point out that it is, according to the Web editor Adnaan Wasey, a multi-platform news program, which would bridge some of the other programs you mention above.
We appreciate your ideas, and I think we’ll all watch and listen with interest as The Takeaway team continues to develop the overall tone and content.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
I hope that the staff at Knight will read the hundreds of negative comments on the Takeaway’s website and take some actions to address them. The show is detested by many intelligent listeners as trite, shrill, and indistinguishable from commercial radio. (Even the BBC newsreader is something of an embarrassment, compared to traditional BBC radio.)
I do not fault Knight for wanting to support some different options for public radio, but this particular program is just awful.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Thanks, D. Thom for your comment.
It would be great to hear from you other programs that you do like and think are innovative and, perhaps, other things that The Takeaway might try in the future–