Wait…what?
In case the brilliance of my iconography is not immediately apparent, that’s the V from V for Vendetta superimposed over the Fox News logo. Because — holy shit, you guys — Ezra Klein is going to call his new website Vox Media.
Ezra Klein, if you’re blessed not to know, is the thirty-something crown prince of the New Media Wunderkinder that old fart journalists think are the bee’s knees. Klein was also the brains behind the Journolist.
There is no sense in which that name is a good idea. It’s going to be near impossible to distinguish between Vox and Fox when, say, talking on a cell phone. (My mother took a job at the switchboard/intercom of a hospital once. She swore when she started she’d never say “nyan” instead of “nine” because, doesn’t that sound silly? And within days she was saying “nyan” instead of “nine” because, honest-to-god, nobody can hear the difference over a crappy PA system and doctors were all phoning her up to ask, “did you say nine or five?”).
I doubt he did it on purpose. I mean, counting on clicks from people who mis-hear or mis-type another website is so very low rent. It’s the kind of sleazy dick move that pornographers and bottom feeders like whoever runs the Drudge Retort get up to. Klein views himself as a Real Serious Journalist, so that would be out of character.
On the other hand, if they chose the name without thinking through the whole Vox, Fox thing — how amateurish is that? I refused to join the Graphic Artists’ Guild because — c’mon, you guys, you’re graphic artists! You’re supposed to do style issues like acronyms!
Ugh. Amateurs.
UPDATE: Ohhhhh….hang on. Vox Media is already a thing. Klein is hitching his wagon to their star, where he joins other illustrious titles. Like Curbed, Eater, and Racked.
Posted: January 27th, 2014 under personal, politics.
Comments: 16
Comments
Comment from Mike James
Time: January 28, 2014, 12:16 am
It’s the reanimation of the Juicebox Mafia. Wail.
Comment from Mojo
Time: January 28, 2014, 12:28 am
Who’d he find to bankroll his adolescent fantasy site?
Comment from Paula Douglas
Time: January 28, 2014, 12:30 am
These days the audio quality of aviation radio transmissions is generally good enough to obviate the need to say “niner” instead of “nine” and “fife” instead of “five,” but believe it or not people still get “ten thousand” and “eleven thousand” mixed up, to the point that if you’re assigned an altitude of 10,000′ you’re well advised to read back, “one zero ten thousand” just so everyone’s clear. Oh, and Ezra Klein is an asshat. Jeff Bezos, at least, saw through his little charade.
Comment from thefritz
Time: January 28, 2014, 12:32 am
Vox
Company
Vox is a musical equipment manufacturer which is most famous for making the Vox AC30 guitar amplifier, the Vox Continental electric organ, and a series of innovative but commercially unsuccessful electric guitars and bass guitars. Wikipedia
Maybe the company will sue Klein for stealing their name…especially since Klein will use his VOX to amplify his noise.
Comment from dissent555
Time: January 28, 2014, 12:37 am
Klein can always revert to calling his empire Pox Media.
I would support him wholeheartedly on that.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 28, 2014, 12:49 am
It’s worse than that, Fritz: Vox is owned by a giant, wealthy, tetchy, litigious Japanese corporation called Korg.
Hee hee!
Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: January 28, 2014, 1:14 am
Besides being a tweak at ‘Fox’, Vox is obviously from ‘vox populi’ – Latin for “Voice of the People” but in typical Progressive fashion they have ignored the people.
For some reason, I am convinced that this project will collapse in tears, unpopularity, and bankruptcy – but not until after the next election. The only question for me is who is bankrolling this – Hillary’s people, or Obama’s?
Comment from Jimmie
Time: January 28, 2014, 1:42 am
Klein, Yglesias, and company aren’t starting a new company. They’re joining a company that already exists and building a new web site under Vox Media’s umbrella. Kos and Jerome Armstrong (remember him) co-founded the company, which owns sites like SBNation and The Verge. They have respectable web traffic inside their respective niches and, to Kos’ credit (ugh, I know), the companies are apolitical.
Except now, of course. Apparently, Klein will pull Dylan Matthews, another left-wing blog protege, with him from the WaPo.
Basically, a bunch of left-wing kids are going to start a new website to explain the news to us and that site will be owned by Vox Media, also owned by a bunch of left-wingers. So that ought to be fun.
Comment from Skandia Recluse
Time: January 28, 2014, 2:43 am
Vox Media
wasn’t accidental. They think it’s cute, sly, cunning.
Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: January 28, 2014, 2:47 am
Eh, Vox Media sounds like garbage Latin. Medium vocalem?
Comment from Mojo
Time: January 28, 2014, 5:06 am
The full source is “Vox populi, Vox Dei”, “the voice of the people is the voice of God”
You can believe as much of that as you want to.
Comment from unkawill
Time: January 28, 2014, 9:34 am
Folk singer, activist Pete Seeger dies in NY.
Anybody have him in the pool this time?
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 28, 2014, 11:53 am
Thanks for that Jimmie. The item Klein placed in the Verge was really hard to understand. When people complained about that in the comments, Klein popped in and said, “that’s because it’s a teaser.”
Honestly, I don’t understand what anyone sees in this guy. He’s just not that good.
Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: January 28, 2014, 7:23 pm
Vappae Media?
(from vappa (flavourless wine, & by metaphor used to mean spoiled, worthless fellow), from vapor (steam, breath), from whence we also get the word “wop” (from guappo (worthless fucking fancy-pants poofter, or any Spaniard)))
Comment from ed
Time: January 29, 2014, 7:47 am
There’s a whole backstory to the Klein thing. Evidently he demanded that the Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com fame, pony up enough cash to support 30+ staffers and an annual budget of $10 million a year. For a fricking blog!
A blog that Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com pointed out that had fewer than 10% of the monthly viewership that Instapundit had!
O.o
Amazing cojones to be doing that. So yeah Klein thinks he’s going to be all uber-gorilla of the interwebs. Really he’s a schmuck that can’t bring enough income to support his own company so he’ll leech off of Vox Media until they learn that he’s not worth it then he’ll go somwhere else like a modern day blogging plague of grasshoppers.
Comment from Yojimbo
Time: January 29, 2014, 12:14 pm
Klein is a well-known d-bag hipster, he makes pajama-boy look like John McClane. He makes Tom Friedman look smart by comparison. He does well with the mindless prog-left echo-chamber but like so many of his ilk, has no apparent capacity for actual critical thinking.
Good luck to him and anyone so foolish as to invest in his venture. (“Air America” anyone?).
I suspect that in a few years, he will be looking for a gig on MSNBC.
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