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ALUMNI PROFILEBringing News to the MTV GenerationBy Claire Lui '00Gideon Yago ’00 describes himself as “a midwife of news.” As a correspondent for MTV News, he writes and delivers the channel’s daily “10-to-the-hour” segments and works on longer documentaries. His broadcasts have covered a wide range of topics, including the fighting in Afghanistan, hate crimes, AIDS, and of course, rock ’n’ roll.
Yago first appeared on MTV as a winning contestant on Idiot Savant, a pop-culture game show, during his freshman year. A few years later, when he was a senior, he and a friend saw a sign in Lerner recruiting people for MTV. Assuming that the channel was recruiting for more contestants, Yago gamely joined the long interview line. It turned out that MTV was recruiting for Choose or Lose, the channel’s quadrennial campaign to educate and register young voters. Yago was chosen as one of six college students around the country to report on the election and on issues that reflected each student’s geographic and ethnic background. Yago acknowledges that the campaign was a contrived “Real World-esque idea,” but points out, “As implicitly cheesy as I knew it was, I was like, OK, nobody is talking about the stuff that was common barroom conversation amongst me and my friends.” After Choose or Lose, Yago stayed on as an MTV News correspondent. Yago points out that MTV viewers, though young, are savvy about media biases and packaging. “Our audiences have these very well-honed, very developed B.S. meters. So if you attempt to go in there with any spin whatsoever, you’re going to get called on it.” Explaining MTV’s Cliff Notes approach to the news, Yago says, “Our game is the basics. We’re essentially trying to frame complex issues in simple, easy-to-understand terms, and that’s not the easiest thing to do.” Not taking his responsibility lightly, Yago says, “Our job is not to indoctrinate, our job is to inform. We take that very seriously.” Describing his experiences in Kuwait earlier this year, Yago talked about how being a young reporter allowed him to relate to the soldiers as their peer. This was the first war fought and protested by the so-called “MTV Generation,” and Yago found he had an advantage over older reporters. Soldiers wanted to talk, and to “tell about their girlfriends back home, or their wives back home, or their kids back home, or what it’s like to be 19 and desperate and join the Marines ’cause you [don’t have any] other resources, and now are staring down the barrel of a war.” Yago’s online diaries for MTV about his time in Kuwait are a mixture of references to movies and video games, news analysis, and the musings of a 25-year-old. He prefaces a dark sentence about a soldier’s fear, “They block out what the war might bring to their doorsteps at home,” with a personal aside that he misses his own girlfriend “like crazy.” Yago, who was named one of the “25 Hottest Stars Under 25” by Teen People last year, shrugs off such lists base but admits to a fondness for the fan mail he gets from prisoners. And working at MTV has its perks for a longtime music fan. Yago toured with Radiohead, one of his favorite bands, in 2001, describing the summer as his “Almost Famous experience.” He also speaks with awe about meeting Iggy Pop, Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney. Yago credits some of his reporting tenacity to Columbia, describing the College as a “fend-for-yourself school, a sink-or-swim school.” He also credits his classmates for much of his education: “To be able to have so many dynamic people around you — it’s a blessing, and that’s the real luck of being at school there.” Vague about future plans, Yago says that his job is “a very selfish thing that I do because I’m afforded wonderful chances, and the fact that it does, at least I hope, contribute positively.” Only three years older than MTV, Yago acknowledges the impact the channel has had on his life. “I was tuned into politics by watching Tabitha [Soren], Allison [Stewart] and Kurt Loder. And I go to sleep at night knowing that perhaps in some minute way, I’ve had a chance to affect a part of an audience the same way I was affected.”
Claire Lui ’00 is a freelance writer and research editor living in Queens. Her articles have appeared in Women’s Wear Daily and Martha Stewart Weddings.
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