MTV News shuts operations after 36 years, leaving behind a long-lasting impact
Parent company Paramount Global has shut down MTV News, the news organization founded in 1987 as a program named The Week in Rock and later developing into a legitimate news source for Gen X and older millennials. With an eye on the younger generation who tuned into MTV, the news division and its correspondents, who included Kurt Loder, Tabitha Soren, SuChin Pak, Gideon Yago, and Alison Stewart, covered music, pop culture, politics, and other themes.
They were responsible for numerous iconic events in pop culture, but none more so than in 1994, when President Clinton participated in the town hall discussion series Enough Is Enough on MTV. “Mr. President, the world is dying to know, is it boxers or briefs,” a member of the crowd questioned Clinton.
In response, Clinton said: “Usually briefs. I can’t believe she did that,” he said. Boxers or briefs would become to be a regular joke that is still used today during MTV News town halls with Barack Obama, John McCain, Bill Gates, and others.
The most recent version of MTV News concentrated on news and commentary related to entertainment and popular culture. However, MTV News is one of the elements that simply didn’t fit in the overall plan at work, especially given the greater upheaval in the entertainment industry and Paramount’s need to reduce expenses.
In addition to covering pop culture, MTV News at its height, along with its reporters, none more so than Loder, were an integral part of it. In episodes of sitcoms like The Simpsons, That ’90s Show, and Kenan & Kel, Loder played himself.
In reality, Loder made a sort of farewell appearance on MTV News in March for corporate parent Paramount. It was a made-up scene intended to promote the upcoming season of the Showtime series Yellowjackets. When reporting on the missing soccer squad, whose “whereabouts are still unknown,” as Loder informed viewers, Loder portrayed himself at the MTV News desk. With deepfake technology used to age Loder down to make him look and sound like he did in the early 1990s (he is now 77), the heyday of MTV News, it was a throwback in more ways than one.
MTV News had a substantial online presence, but it paled in comparison to rivals BuzzFeed and Vice, both of which recently shut down or scaled back their news operations.