ZeitGeist: Keeping Non-News On the Web, Where It Belongs

Willie Geist really lucked out there, last name-wise. After all, if you’re going to cover the exciting world of “news that doesn’t really matter,” then you’re going to need some sort of clever branding to go along with it. And ZeitGeist is the perfect name for what’s actually a pretty fun little trip through the dredges of pop culture news.

A producer for MSNBC whose newsroom banter with Tucker Carlson started getting him airtime on The Situation, Geist has since become a co-host on Morning Joe, bringing a deadpan sense of humor to the daily news (which, given the state of cable news journalism these days, includes tasks as onerous as interviewing Victoria’s Secret models). ZeitGeist is Geist’s web-only side project, in which he offers up the sort of news that pops up in the “most emailed” lists on the BBC and NY Times — the ridiculous stories we’re all slightly ashamed to find fascinating.

What separates Geist from pop culture commentators like Jon Stewart and Joel McHale of The Soup is his earnestness; he anchors the show with complete seriousness, and it works as a change of pace, largely because the stories he covers are so ridiculous that they don’t need any additional spin to make them funny. That doesn’t stop Geist from the occasional clever aside — while reporting on Internet porn use at the office, for example, he narrates over B-roll footage of people in cubicles: “We don’t know if the people in this video are included in that 25 percent; it’s just the only tape we could find of people actually working at their desks.”

ZeitGeist makes for a clever 4-minute diversion, and the hosting site’s recent relaunch includes a clean, easy-to-explore interface. But what is the ultimate cost of lending a quasi-journalistic spin to topics like a woman who makes tree ornaments out of reindeer poop? Are we satirizing the state of reporting today, or are just we giving up entirely? The series’ tagline, “All the news you cannot use,” is at least honest about the topics they choose to cover. But the reason that tagline is funny is because it’s true. What’s somewhat frightening is that its content is hard to distinguish from the bulk of the stories real morning news shows cover. But MSNBC is keeping this content on the web, where it belongs — at least for now.