Entertainment and show-business news on the Internet can often be very ridiculous in content and overrated in popularity and even credibility. Turkish news on the Internet is no exception.

Recently in Turkey, a minor conflict that arised between a singer and a radio show host hit the Turkish news scene. Yet, being such an insignificant and tiny story, it made it to the front page of an established online Turkish newspaper.

The story involves Turkish pop singer Demet Akalın and popular talk show host Cem Arslan. As Arslan, of Best FM, played one of Akalın’s songs, he continued talking in the background throughout the whole song. Somehow, Akalın was aware of this… (Do artists listen to their own songs on the radio, or something?)

Bothered by the fact, Akalın resorted to Twitter as her means of expressing her thoughts about Arslan’s actions. She tweeted something along the lines of “Dude, just let the song play…” The Best FM host must have taken this comment as a self-absorbed remark on behalf of Akalın as he immediately replied to the singer saying that his talking on the program is much more important than the song, and that he will not play any more of Akalın’s songs on his show. He also added that “anyone who wants to listen to her songs can get the album. We don’t give credit to show-offs here!”

It is interesting how such a silly and virtually insignificant event like this ended up on a Turkish Internet newspaper. Is Internet news desperate for stories or do the priorities of the readers actually lie in silly stories?

Here is Food for Thought:

On the Internet, news is consumed a la carte. If someone shows up on the main page of a website and doesn’t see anything of interest, they leave. This negatively impacts ad revenues. The solution on the Internet is to pack news websites full of things that will draw people in, regardless of whether they are news or not. ~Drew Curtis

You may find this magazine news at Hürriyet Gazetesi.