No news is no news

Steamy e-mails shed light on astronaut’s behavior
Bread, pizza can threaten lives of mom, son
Car carrying pot crashes into trooper’s cruiser
Police think dad meant to crash plane
Idol’s final cut leaves Paula Abdul speechless
Tail-wagging dog pulled from icy lake by diver
Elizabeth Hurley wedding deck demolished
Unmanned plane finds child sex abuse suspect

Dying to click through and read the story?

Man admits killing wife’s teen lover — by accident
Angelina Jolie son’s sad early life
Lights in sky were alien UFO, governor says
28-cent-a-gallon gas creates fill-up frenzy
Warrior poses with supermodel, thinks about goats
Stowaway pup survives 6-day trip in cargo ship
Peanut butter recall expanded

CNN or The Onion or National Enquirer?

Boater clings to floating gas can for 4 days
Regis Philbin to have bypass surgery
Danny Bonaduce mocks O’Donnell’s harness
Man says stabbing on camera not as it seems
Daylight-saving time may baffle your computer
DC escort service owner set to name names
Uncle: giving kids pot not a big deal
Mom pleads guilty to using baby as weapon

All the headlines in all three boxes were from CNN, I’m afraid, from the last couple of weeks.

I click on CNN many times a day because I am addicted to the idea that there is breaking news and that I must know what it is. But it’s about as satisfying as eating cotton candy. I know I’m stating the obvious, but CNN trades on gratuitous voyeurism, not journalism. It’s no coincidence that more than half the stories above had video clips.

The most offensive aspect is the dominance of stories about individuals who are of no national, political or social consequence. And if further indictment were needed, remember CNN pays Nancy Grace to broadcast her toxic insight into every sordid murder case around.

At this point in my post, I intended to compare CNN with the BBC News website, demonstrating the easy contrast between good and evil. But when I went to the site, it was much more lightweight than I expected, including the headline:

Massive microwave needed to defrost colossal squid

And that’s what makes me even madder about CNN—it has lowered standards everywhere. So watch out.

Angry blogger skewers CNN in online forum; executives shocked, reeling.

6 responses to “No news is no news”

  1. G-Lock says:

    As CNN is my homepage at both work and home (sorry, GWI!), the Bonaduce/O’Donnell headline caught my eye last week. Compelling!!!!!!!!!!

  2. W2 says:

    reading the CNN headlines as one run-on sentence reminds me of the kind of spam that is currently floating freer than a dolphin through a hoop through my spam filter:

    a compassionate be down it maidenhair , volkswagen not live ! molybdenum ! brittle it hyphen the ignore it censorial it’s forfend it rouge may shaven try codpiece it’s signor try breastwork ! aversion may tango , grimes ! pensacola it’s descriptive or argue try protozoa , eigenstate the braille the dieldrin not pulley in sophomore on mission a pelvis and analyst a complicity the bam in crestfallen not corvette but adamson see knutson and bandstand but psychotherapist be permutation not arcsin on mandamus it burr the leapt a tuck be malcontent but comanche or cavalry not piteous it bowl see weber it quintic may pagan and wail not maybe it’s queen on coca but fundamental on bone it’s clint

  3. Dave says:

    W2’s right — I thought you were quoting spam emails.

    Speaking of the BBC, I watched this lovely evisceration of John Bolton yesterday (click on the story on the upper right). Why don’t we have American journalists who do stuff like that? It’s more fun than Nancy Grace or that offensive blond Mormon guy — Glenn Beck or whatever.

  4. Dave says:

    The clip I meant to link to is called “Bolton: Few regrets over Iraq” in case there’s confusion.

  5. Scotty says:

    Yesterday there was a headline in our local LBC paper, “Danger Lurks in Chinese Food.” The funny thing is, after reading the article, I had an emense craving for some of those scrumptiously dangerous dumplings. Yummy! and a pack of Luckys.

  6. Dave says:

    The key is less salt, more MSG.