I realize I like to complain about a lot of things and seem to find the negative in most situations, but I think I'm pretty justified in being completely outraged at what our news organizations in the US have become. I've gone out of my mind a few times in the past when I watch some 10:00 news and the lead story is Woody Allen banging his teenage adopted daughter or Britney dropping her kid. But every major news organization in the US - CNN, MSNBC, Fox, AP and Reuters - have apparently decided that celebrity gossip (and it doesn't matter if it's an A-, B- or C-list celeb...) is now considered major, breaking news.
I stopped watching CNN the day Anna Nicole Smith died. Why? Wolf Bliltzer, who I grew to love during his coverage of the first Gulf War way back in 1990 or 91, was practically gasping for air for more than two hours talking about the Anna Nicole Smith death. Are you fucking kidding me???? On CNN.com, MSNBC.com and other news sites, this dumb slut's death was treated as BREAKING NEWS! The amount of attention given to this non-story boggles my mind. It's on par, literally, with the coverage Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan got when they died. How fucking pathetic are we as a nation?
I work for a Tribune-owned newspaper (I'm not a reporter by profession anymore). Know what we had on the front page the next day? Yeah, Anna Nicole. Front page, full below the fold story. Unbelievable!!!!!! I was so pissed off about all this that I think my co-workers were wondering if I was going to have a mental breakdown. Maybe I will. But little did most people realize while they were mourning the loss of a moronic drug addict who became famous for being incoherent 99.9% of the time, is that more soldiers died in Iraq that day. And the day after. And the day after that. yet, none of that was front page news like the death of Anna Nicole or, now, the collapse of Britney Spears.
If you were to ask 1,000 random people, I'd be willing to bet a large majority would know the intimate details of this bimbo's life and death but know nothing of what is happening in Afghanistan or Iraq or the rest of the world.
Here's a letter I sent to MSNBC.com today, which is similar to the one I fired off to CNN and Wolf Blizter last week:
I'm beginning to run out of options both on TV and on the web to find legitimate news. Anna Nicole's death is being treated like the murder of a president on CNN, MSNBC, Fox and even my local ABC affiliate. Those news organizations' respective web sites continue to flash BREAKING NEWS banners every time there is something going on with Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears or some other useless "celebrity." I have news for you at MSNBC: THIS IS NOT NEWS!!!! Please stop insulting your audience and stop posting celebrity gossip posed as real news. In case you forgot, we have young soldiers being blown to bits or being shot in the head every day in Iraq or Afghanistan. There's a lot of crap going on in Washington that affects our every day lives. There's a lot going on around the world we need to know about. Yet, what do you folks at MSNBC/.com post as headline news? Bullshit stories about a drug addict moron who did nothing but humiliate herself for 15 years and became famous for being said moron.
I've already decided to stop watching MSNBC and CNN after you both decided to devote hours and hours of coverage of Anna Nicole's death and now Britney's problems. I'm so disgusted by what you now consider news. I hope those of you in charge of deciding what to showcase in the future will finally wake up to the fact celebrity gossip belongs on the pages of the National Enquirer. So, why don't you please decide what you are: a news organization or a gossip tabloid.
I hope the news-viewing/reading public begin to wake up from their obsession with celebrity bullshit and start holding the heads of these news organizations responsible for completely dumbing down the "news" and force them to do their jobs. I no longer watch cable news and I'm starting to not watch my local news either because of this. I'll tune into BBC News or find something better online while dodging the barrage of useless gossip.
