| What's Trending | |
|---|---|
Title card |
|
| Format | News |
| Created by | Shira Lazar |
| Developed by | Disrupt/Group |
| Starring | Shira Lazar |
| Theme music composer | Mike Relm |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Damon Berger, Shira Lazar |
| Broadcast | |
| Original run | May 15, 2011 – present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
What's Trending is weekly, live, interactive television show hosted by Shira Lazar.
Contents |
The show consists of two celebrity panelist discussing news that's currently trending or has been during the week. The show also showcases an interview with a top celebrity, one who has become influential through social media. Guests have included, Will.i.am, Mark Cuban, Lisa Kudrow, Stan Lee, Kevin Smith, Drew Carey, iJustine and Greg Grunberg. Also during the program, Column Five Media creates info-graphics illustrating various topics such as, "How Something Goes Viral," and "The History of Video Games." The program showcases rising startups such as Games for Change, Pencils of Promise, Syyn Labs, and Getaround. The show also incorporates musical performances that have included The Gregory Brothers, Kina Grannis, Mike Relm and Destorm.
On June 7, rapper, producer Lupe Fiasco was interviewed during the program and said, "My fight against terrorism, to me, the biggest terrorist is Obama in the United States of America." [1] On June 20, Lupe Fiasco appeared on the Fox News show "The O'Reilly Factor" defending the controversial comments he made on the show.[2]
Steve Rosenbaum of Huffington Post wrote an article that said, "It's clear that CBS is committed to this story -- jumping past the cheesy bluescreen or robo-set and building Lazar and her team a truly 'webified' set that is both high tech and modern. When the network springs for a set, you know they're in it for the long run."[3] Mike Hale from The New York Times wrote on May 24, "What's really new about "What's Trending," and most of interest to Watchlist, is simply the fact that it's a live, scheduled half-hour Web show being done on the site of a major broadcast television network (and with a major corporate sponsor AT&T). That's revolutionary, whether the subject is social networking or retirement planning."[4] Marshall Kirkpatrick of Read Write Web wrote, "It will all be run through the living experiment of multi-platform viewer engagement that What's Trending is using and building at the same time. It's an effort that could help illuminate some developments in the future of entertainment on the web and it's ambitious enough to be downright inspirational."[5]
On September 10, CBS News ended its relationship with Lazar and the show after a tweet was posted by a junior staffer claiming Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had died. A formal apology was issued live at the beginning of the September 13th show,[6] Now the show carries on independently through partnerships with Ustream and Livestream. Marc Hustvedt of Tubefilter wrote, "The show itself is still groundbreaking, and arguably the most polished half-hour live show on the internet right now. It brings intelligent people together to talk about top news stories in an informative way."[7]