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entertaining u newspaper: your weekly guide to entertainment
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by rick grant
rickgrant01@comcast.net
After more than twenty years as an electronic media reporter and CNN anchor, Daryn Kagan decided to leave her position with CNN and start her own independent web casting site, www.darynkagan.com. Daryn left CNN because she had stagnated in one position, and more importantly, she had a burning desire to do inspirational stories under the philosophy of “The World is a Good Place.”
Indeed, for Daryn it was a gutsy move to give up a secure anchor job to face the uncertainty of a burgeoning new medium. Daryn emphasized on her site that this isn’t a “happy news” site. It is more focused than that. She calls it a “hopeful” news medium that will “show the world what is possible.” Daryn also stated that her website has no political or religious affiliation.
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Daryn brings many years of experience in television news to her web cast. She anchored both news and sports, traveled to Kuwait during the war in Iraq, and journeyed to Africa for a 10-day tour with U2’s Bono and U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, all during her career at CNN. She was seen in many different locations covering elections, the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy, and the hunt for the Washington D.C. sniper.
So, when a journalist of Dayrn’s stature makes a quantum leap to web casting, it adds credibility to this exciting medium. Other noted commentators have been successful in making this transition, including Huffington, who created www.thehuffingtonpost.com on May 9, 2005. It has become a popular political web casting site, and often quoted in news stories. More significantly, Arianna has been successful at selling advertising for her webzine. So for Daryn, there is hope that she can carve out her own marketing web niche with her inspirational stories.
When Daryn launched the site in early November, I had a more than passing interest in her project, since I see a great future for web casting as a viable journalistic medium. Web casting sites are popping up all over the web as both an independent source of news and an adjunct to major network shows (see my article about Jay Leno’s Garage).
Ah yes, the trick for Daryn and others is how to lure corporate advertisers to this new genre. Daryn has hired a producer and video crew to create her daily web casts, and she is working with marketers to sell advertising for her site. For Daryn, the scary part is not having the corporate power of a worldwide news organization behind her, but on the positive side, she is no longer a cog in their big wheel of cut-throat corporate hierarchy. Now, Daryn can make her own decisions as an independent web caster.
Daryn’s stories are divided into categories such as Animals, Artists, Celebrities, For Charity, Heroism, Kids, Love, Over 60, Overcoming Obstacles, Sports, and World Events. On Thanksgiving, Daryn’s web cast concerned a woman who was very good at making breast milk. In fact, she had so much of it frozen; she didn’t know what to do with it. So she started a special charity by which she sent her breast milk to a company that pasteurized it and shipped it to Africa for babies who were orphaned when their mothers died of AIDS. Daryn’s web cast is shot in high definition video. Presently, there is no option to toggle to full screen, which I hope she will add in the future. Daryn is soliciting stories from her viewers. She publishes them with video or still photographs setup as a slide show.
Of course, Daryn’s mission to feature stories of inspiration is a radical departure from cable news networks that operate on the philosophy of, “if it bleeds it leads.” However, human interest stories occasionally get major coverage on major news networks. Daryn is tapping into the human spirit’s hunger for unusual positive stories of hope, against all odds. I’m supporting her brave efforts and respect her for taking this risky step into the unknown. So, go for it girl!
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