Alpha Kitty To 'Times': Be 'HuffPo'!
"I have spent the last decade eating... uh... I mean reading, sweets exclusively. One might even say I'm addicted. Before I drink my morning sugar-free (ironic) Red Bull, I've already gobbled up The New York Post (horoscopes first, Page Six second) and Women's Wear Daily's Memo Pad column. Then, I pretty much subsist on MySpace—the micro-media Lothario that stole me away from the old man—with jolts of Perez Hilton when things get too sweet. (He is my Sour Patch Kid.)" That's the digital impresario Atoosa Rubenstein, whose new job is telling the fogeys who read Forbes.com how to understand the internet tubes.
This week, she's shared her "media diet" with them. She also has some recommendations as to how various media outlets might improve themselves. Here's her hot tip for a local rag called The New York Times. "I wish they'd borrow a page from The Huffington Post (a dietary recommendation from one of my 20-year-old friends on MySpace) and create a sugary version with more color and less words. Dear New York Times, once you hook us with your great reporting, we addicts will dig deeper and read those long articles (and get informed, for goodness' sake). But you've got to hook us first."
(Choire is the cat.) Ahem. Anyway, Atoosa also reads—but disdains!—a gossip site that's full of "snarky, entertaining and yes, hateful, takes on the day's top media stories." It's okay for you to read it, you grown-up Forbes-reading fat cat—"You've already arrived, baby." But Atoosa often tells "young people who have very high aspirations for themselves not to read it, because the addiction can distract from their ascent." Hear that, kitties? STEP AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW.