MTV News Shutting Down
Sad but not surprising news given the state of American media. After over 30 years, MTV News is being shut down. The shut down is part of a wave of layoffs at Paramount/Showtime/MTV. Via Deadline:
Also folding is MTV News, the news production division of MTV, which was launched in the late 1980s. The unit already had undergone significant downsizing over the last six years. MTV News staffers took to social media to share the layoff news.
MTV News, with Kurt Loder and Tabitha Soren in particular, were a massive part of my and most Gen X’ers daily lives throughout the 90’s. There was no internet then, CNN was fixated on wars and the Clintons, so MTV was the place for news that mattered most. There was the breaking news about Kurt Cobain (as seen above), and there were of course dozens of interviews with Madonna. I loved this one during the recording of “Ray Of Light,” which features a 25-year-old Guy Oseary, snippets of the then unheard “Frozen,” and Madonna saying she’d hate to have to sing “Like A Virgin” on tour again:
There obviously aren’t any stars of Madonna’s caliber to interview these days (nor is there much quality artistic content being produced), so I suppose there’s not much use for MTV News anymore. What charismatic stars do they have to interview today? Taylor Swift? Sam Smith? Chris Brown?
Here was Tabitha Soren interviewing the brilliant and absurdly charming Tupac Shakur. I can’t think of anyone in 2023 who can hold your attention the way he did:
