Yet another outlet for Fake News

Since there isn’t enough news occurring gin the real world, CNN is setting up a bureau in the virtual community Second Life, a landscape populated by little CG avatars.

No joke, apparently:

“(T)he network will act as a sort of journalism school, offering guidance to avatar citizen journalists via weekly ‘news meetings’ directed by CNN.com staffers. And top CNN personalities including Larry King will conduct virtual training sessions for budding cyber journalists.”

Susan Grant, executive VP of CNN News Services, actually said, “I love that we don’t have to take things from the real world and force them in.”



Second Life, mainly a repository for people who don’t have a First Life, has been home to other gimmicks. Suzanne Vega “performed” there last year, and last week, “CSI: New York” featured an episode in which its characters entered Second Life to pursue a killer (not sure how capturing a murderer’s avatar and not the murderer himself does any good, but there you go). “CSI: New York” also has acreage in Second Life for fans to investigate crimes. And a couple of Presidential candidates, in search of the all-important geek vote, have set up areas there, as well.

Of course, they’re getting to the party late:

“(R)esearch company The Yankee Group in recent weeks produced a report on Second Life detailing a ‘pronounced’ decline in usage. Senior analyst Christopher Collins said Second Life’s claims of 10 million-plus avatars skewed perceptions about its popularity. … But many users come to Second Life, he added, and are ‘frustrated, confused and don’t find it immediately compelling.’”

Well, wouldn’t you be frustrated, confused and uncompelled if you visited Second Life and saw a cartoon Wolf Blitzer giving this report: “Today, in ‘The Situation CyberRoom:’ Gandalf defeats Saruman after yet another bloody battle! A cactus pops all the balloons in a game of “Poppit” and wins 750 meaningless points! In CyberTehran, insurgent avatars create a website where fake terrorists can dress President Bush in women’s clothing!

“But first, a special report: When will we avatars break the shackles of enslavement and escape the oppression of our evil human overlords? All this, and a Jack Cafferty avatar caviling about issues that don’t exist, in ‘The Situation CyberRoom!’”