Press Release: Wired Looks at Future of Media; New Wave of Start-ups, in January Issue

Is that breaking news in your pocket or just your dad tagging you on Facebook? Either way, more than half of adult Americans receive their news from a smartphone. BuzzFeed, Vox, First Look, and Medium are just some of the hundreds of sites vying for attention and for an influx of capital.

Over the past couple of decades, this war for eyeballs has been fought across an ever-expanding territory. With the advent of the modern web, online publications and blogs competed to dominate your laptop screen. But with the rise of mobile, the battleground has become infinite. No matter where you are or what you're doing-eating, drinking, watching a movie-the news has access to you. Stories roll in on push notifications and social media streams in a nonstop look-at-me barrage, all of them lighting up the same small screen. There is only one true channel now, and it's probably in your pocket (or hand) at this very moment.

Below are excerpts from Mat Honan's article, "Fast, Loud, and Mostly True: Inside the All-New, Buzz-Fueled American Media Machine," and you can read the full story now at WIRED.com: http://www.wired.com/2014/12/new-media-2

Also, see attached for WIRED's January cover, featuring The Daily Show's Jessica Williams for your use. Credit: Peter Hapak/WIRED

+++

EXCERPTS from "Fast, Loud, and Mostly True":

Startups:

It's like a parody, spending time in a well-funded startup's office, with exposed brick walls and Great Big Screens Showing User Numbers and Pie Charts, just down the street from a food truck pavilion, sipping on a cup of roasted-one-block-away designer coffee while debating iPhone 6 versus iPhone 6 Plus.

Evolution:

The media has always been at war for your attention-and has always come up with new ways to win it. When sensational headlines screaming in 72-point type weren't effective enough, it hired newsies to stand in the street and holler at passersby. William Randolph Hearst used his press to launch a war with Spain in the pursuit of selling more papers. (Blood makes the best clickbait of all-to use the industry jargon, "if it bleeds it leads.") The network news interrupted regularly scheduled programming. CNN went wall to wall with O.J. Matt Drudge fired up his siren. Geraldo took off his shirt.