13 Million Hits Per Month Signifies the Reach of Social Media
Cenk Uygur, is the main host of the liberal talk radio show The Young Turks. He was also the host of the internet interview show Meet The Bloggers throughout its run.
The show currently airs in a number of places, including the 8pm slot on XM Satellite Radio’s America Left, channel 167. Aside from airing on the radio, TYT has also made several online partnerships with media groups such as AOL News, TidalTV, and YouTube. The show’s YouTube channel gets an average of 13 million hits per month.
Cenk Uygur, The Young Turks
Uygur is also a regular blogger on The Huffington Post and a former practicing attorney. He grew up in East Brunswick Township, New Jersey, where he attended East Brunswick High School. Cenk admits to being a Republican in his youth. He is a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Law School, and a former associate at the law firms of Drinker Biddle & Reath in Washington, D.C. and Parcher, Hayes & Liebman in New York City. He first became a talk show host at a Washington, D.C. radio station on the weekends while working at Drinker, before eventually shifting to full-time radio work. He is an avid fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
This of course is the official bio for Cenk Uygur, and perhaps provides some insight as to why his voice, and the collective reach of his show The Young Turks is an example of Social Media’s ultimate reach.
But would his reach have achieved the numbers it has without the advent of social media? It is an interesting question because Cenk’s background and experience would indicate that he lies somewhere in the middle between the realms of traditional journalism, and the emerging citizen journalism. Being thought of as someone who occupies the “middle ground” may be somewhat unfamiliar territory, especially for someone who was once on the right side of the political spectrum, and is now firmly on the left. Yet Cenk may very well come to represent the bridge that will ultimately help to drive the merger of the old and the new journalistic sensibilities.
Much like my August 29th post “The American Football League, American Basketball Association and Blog Talk Radio?” in which I predicted that the convergence of the free spirited, liberal engagement of the AFL, and the traditional, conservative practicality of the NFL is similar to what will likely take place between traditional journalism and social media journalism, it is clear that one ultimately needs the other to progress.
While the FTC has established workshops and roundtable discussions to try and figure out “How Journalism Will Survive the Internet Age,” a more appropriate question would not be one of survival but transformation.
This of course is the objective for today’s show in which Cenk, world-class thought leader and social media strategist David Cushman, blogger and Baby Boomer agitator Ellen Brandt and, author and publisher Sherrie Wilkolaski come together to discuss and even debate the future of journalism.
You can of course access today’s live broadcast which starts at the 3:00 PM EST through the following “Public Workshops and Roundtables: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age” link.
In the meantime, check out Cenk’s and The Young Turks’ coverage of the Fort Hood Shooting through the following video:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
30
piwindowonbusiness.wordpress.com 