Uncanny Valley | WIRED BIG INTV: Chris Hayes on Urgency and Attention
15 snips
Mar 24, 2026 
Chris Hayes, television journalist and author of The Sirens' Call, explores how attention has become a scarce global resource. He discusses covering urgent news in an overloaded cycle. He traces the history of commodified attention and wrestles with balancing audience capture and substantive reporting. He also examines tech’s ties to power, AI risks, and how politics must reckon with automation.
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War As Attention-Grabbed Content
- Modern political violence is produced as attention-grabbing content rather than just policy moves.
- Chris Hayes compares Trump-era strikes and raids to Tom Clancy spectacle and vertical-video imperialism that seek to seize public attention.
Cover Powerful Actors Without Amplifying Them
- Don't ignore powerful figures but refuse to let them set the terms of coverage; contextualize and avoid uncritically amplifying their messaging.
- Hayes says MSNBC covers Trump's actions because they're consequential while trying not to run 'war porn' or play along with his framing.
Attention Became Commodity In The Penny Press Era
- The commodification of attention began with 19th-century billboards and the penny press selling audiences to advertisers.
- Hayes traces the evolution to today's global, data-rich, microsecond ad auctions that personalize and scale attention markets.
