The monster that ate entertainment
Today, CNN.com entered into a level of meta-irony that is so self-consuming, it threatens to actually render a rift in the time space continuum. see also: ouroboros
The article starts out strong, with a recent quote from novelist Stephen King:
The news media, he observed, is being overwhelmed by entertainment gossip. “[I told 'Nightline,'] ‘You guys are just covering — what do they call it — the scream of the peacock, and you’re missing the whole fox hunt.’ Like waterboarding [or] where all the money went that we poured into Iraq. It just seems to disappear.
“And yet you get this coverage of who’s gonna get custody of Britney’s kids? … You’ve got these things going on … that could affect all of us, and instead, you see a lot of this back-fence gossip.”
Certainly a valid observation, one that could even be deemed newsworthy.
So, after such a strong setup, what does CNN do? They do exactly what a major international news organization should do: They launch into a masterpiece of investigative journalism; a studied, reasoned analysis of the most critical news stories of the year that were glossed over in favor of meaningless entertainment news.
Oh. Wait. That didn’t happen.
Actually, what they did was this:
Certainly Spears and Lohan — and Paris Hilton, and Anna Nicole Smith, and down the list to Tila Tequila — were capable of sucking all the oxygen out of the media room in 2007, all of the water out of the office water cooler.
Indeed, forget about hard news stories. Consider the entertainment stories that were overshadowed by Spears, Lohan and Hilton:
Yeah, forget about those hard news stories. Who needs those? Government sanctioned torture? Intentional destruction of videotapes that document that torture? The complete abolition of habeus corpus? The U.S. supported military junta in Burma massacring Buddhist monks? Genocide in Darfur? That stuff is so … depressing.
Instead, consider this: DUMBLEDORE IS GAY.
!!!!!!
Huh? What?
Betcha didn’t know that, did you? Why? Because the media is too busy reporting on Britney’s latest baby mama drama, instead of telling you the truth about what’s really going on in the world.
Here’s another one: “The Sopranos” aired their last episode.
WHAT?! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! WHY WASN’T I TOLD?!!!!
This is an outrage! “The Sopranos” is one of the finest television shows in the history of the medium! And it’s over? Just like that? Without even the slightest fanfare? What’s next … cancelling “The Cosby Show”?
This is an open letter to the mainstream media: In 2008, America demands a complete return to responsible journalism. No longer will we support media outlets that clog the public airwaves — OUR airwaves — with empty entertainment stories.
In this new year, we want to hear the real news, the hard news that affects our lives in substantive ways.
Hear our cry, mainstream media! We don’t want more stories about Lindsay Lohan’s DUI, or Britney Spears’ drug problems!
No! We want the real stories, like about Ty Pennington’s DUI, or that guy from the 2nd season of The Bachelor’s drug problems. What was his name? Aaron, or Andrew, or …
See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about! The media was so busy filling my TV and my Internet with stories about Paris Hilton’s jail time, that I can’t even remember The Bachelor’s name. And I watched that show EVERY WEEK!
Alright, enough of this. I gotta go watch “Family Matters”. That Urkel is so funny!
