Wednesday Rewind
Original publication date: 23 April 2012
Is it news or is it entertainment?
That is the question that many Park Animals are asking, as the boundary between the two, in both broadcast and print media, becomes increasingly blurred.
Enter KartalTechSolutions, S.A. and their revolutionary new device, the Verifyzer™, which company executives claim solves this “modern dilemma” almost instantly.
“This new instrument will tell you, within five seconds, whether what you’re reading or watching is news or entertainment,” said President and CEO, Fikret Kartal, at the product’s launch this past weekend.
On hand at the outdoor launch, which doubled as a pop-up Verifyzer™ retail store, were many representatives of The Park’s media community, as well as some faculty members of the Cuthbert School of Journalism at the University of West Terrier. Many were eager to voice their skepticism of KartalTech’s claims about the new device.
“The company bases the success of this device on a number of assumptions, the most important of which is that there is an objective — and detectable — difference between so-called news and entertainment,” said Journalism Professor and author, Ludwiga Saimiri. “This is something that journalists strive to define every day of their working lives, but it is not something about which, as yet, anyone can make a definitive pronouncement.”
Noburu Akita, Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Newspaper Activity in The Park (C-SNAP) was even more adamant:
“There is no such thing as anything [being] objective in the newspaper business,” he said. “These definitions are fluid, they change with the seasons…with the generations; unfortunately, one Animal’s news is, sometimes, another Animal’s entertainment. And vice-versa.”
Also present at the launch was Rodolfo van de Gier, President of the Association of Media Outlets of The Park (AMOP). Among other things, he took issue with the company’s guarantee of an accuracy rate of 92 per cent.
“The only thing any device can do, as far as I know,” said van de Gier, “is detect the presence of, for instance, celebrities’ names in a print or voice report. But that isn’t necessarily an indication of the nature of the report. Whether you want to admit it or not, celebrities can be involved in ‘real’ news and, sometimes, ‘real’ news can be enormously entertaining,” he said.
In response to van de Gier’s remarks, a KartalTech spokesAnimal, issued this statement:
“With due respect to the AMOP President’s remarks, technology has come a long way from merely detecting names. I invite Mr. van de Gier to attend a full demonstration of our device and to see, for himself, what our new age has to offer.”
While van de Gier has, thus far, made no reply, the Verifyzer™ is scheduled to hit Park stores at the beginning of May.
