This is news?

Apparently something happened to Anna Nicole Smith's son in a Bahamian hospital and he died. What exactly happened is anyone's guess as the coroner who performed the autopsy [who had also worked on the Elvis and JonBenet Ramsey autopsies] is unsure of the cause of death. We suspect he had an elevated heart rate, was on anti-depressants, and there was a third person in the room when died besides himself and his mother, making his death "suspicious."

John Mark Karr was teaching in Thailand when he decided to confess to killing JonBenet Ramsey. Rumors swirled that he was contemplating a sex change operation, was possibly in trouble with Thai authorities and turned himself in to avoid being arrested there. Then it was discovered he was wanted on child porn charges in California, had married a 14 year old when he was 19 or so, and used to sign his letters SBTC or some such. Also his family said he was in Alabama when it happened, though a Denver area man claimed he saw Karr at a bus depot around the same time, looking shifty. He was flown from Thailand to the US 1st class where he sipped champagne, ate prawns and generally kept to himself, loner that he is. Surprise, surprise he was cleared of all charges.

Seriously, why do we care? What disgusts me is that I didn't have to look up any of that information. I work at a TV station so maybe I've been extra-ordinarily exposed to this incessant news coverage, but anyone who has watched the news lately would feel the same way. And we apparently can't get enough of this non-news. It's terrible that Ms. Smith lost her son, but do we really need to know every step of the investigation? Do you know this young man or his mother or anyone who knows them? And it's tragic that the Ramsey's lost their daughter, but why was her death the subject of national interest for months and years on end? Simply because the parents were suspected? How many children have died/been killed in the country since then and had their stories so publicized [The only one I can think of was the child-to-be known as Laci Peterson's unborn fetus]. Earlier this summer in central California, we were following the disappearance of a woman named Debbie Hawk. She disappeared around Flag Day, and every day, we [and every other local media outlet] covered her case. Of course, all that meant for most days was "Police investigations have failed to turn up evidence in the Debbie Hawk case...ex-husband Dave Hawk is still considered a person of interest." Then, finally, somewhere toward the end of July, we dropped it. The cops seemed to have given up and we stopped, and guess what happened? People forgot. Nobody around here cares about Debbie Hawk, I doubt people would even remember if asked today.

Maybe I'm just calloused, cynical, and generally inconsiderate, but I don't think these stories (among countless similar ones) are of any real importance. They are to the families and communities affected, but to expose them nationally boggles my mind. Especially in a time when the world is in such turmoil. There are more important things going on than what's cooking in the tabloids. Africa is falling apart between turmoil in Darfur, DR Congo, Somalia, Zimbabwe, and toxic waste in Ivory Coast. (Darfur had been out of the news completely since May until last week when George Clooney addressed it publicly), the Pope fanning the flames of tension between the West and Islam (leading to a nun being gunned down in Somalia), Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro were holding a summit enforcing anti-American ideals among developing nations, Mexico is still unstable over the Obrador and Calderon election, fighting started back up in Afghanistan, the Hungarians want to oust their PM.
Yet the top stories in the news? The spinach e.coli outbreak [admittedly it's important to tell people not to eat tainted vegetables, but must it be THE story all week? We know not to eat it, I don't care where it's coming from, just tell me when I can eat it again, please], the space shuttle was not able to make it's scheduled landing [space shuttle trouble? who's ever heard of such a thing?] and Steve Irwin [I've never seen a non-controversial death last so long in the news. This one I don't get. Nonetheless, RIP Croc Hunter]

On a recent episode of Charlie Rose, Les Moonves, president of CBS, said he thinks Katie Couric's newer format for evening news, with more, shorter stories and interviews with pundits is going to be the new wave in network news, a veritable Cliff's Notes version of the goings-on of the day, not to be mistaken for journalism. I watched an episode of BBC World News and compared it to World News Tonight. The difference? Well, besides BBC's wonderful lack of commercials, but mediocre production execution, was the depth and breadth of the stories covered. There were fewer stories than we traditionally cover, but I felt like I was actually watching the "world news" and learning what was going on in the world. This is not to say BBC is perfect, but there is something to be said for commercial-free news broadcasting [which I know is impractical because commercials are how we get broadcast channels for free (and yet there always seem to be more ads on those greedy cable channels which we already have to pay for)] They had one fluff piece about a road being built through the French wine country, which mirrored one on ABC about global warming potentially ruining California's wine country.

I forgot why I started writing this, but I do know that I wish we could move away from the sensational soft-news stories that don't actually affect us in any real way, and could move toward more meaningful coverage of the events that actual have effects on our lives. That would make life on the teleprompter much more bearable. I don't know how many more stories about overnight house fires I can take.