I turned on the TV one night last week, and the first thing I heard was, “Britney Spears shaved her head!” I wondered why Entertainment Tonight came on so early until I realized this was actually a top story on the local news. Some investigation revealed that it was also the first headline on CNN.com. With 24-hour news networks, two hours of local news every night, and news days too scant to fill the first section of the paper, the coverage of the Spears meltdown is just part of the trend of reporting useless, trivial news. Celebrity news is not the only trivial news, but it has been the most salient as of late. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past two weeks, Anna Nicole Smith died. The coverage on local news for a story occurring in Florida is pretty ridiculous. We saw her lawyer talk about what a great mother she was. We learned about the 300 men claiming to be her baby’s father and fighting for custody. We saw the courts decide who gets to bury her. For a while, the local news seemed more like Judge Judy. Smith and Spears are only the tip of the iceberg. NBC 17 recently reported that the redheaded actress on Desperate Housewives is having twins. Can you believe that? Twins? Even though most don’t know her name, NBC thought she was important enough to interrupt their continuous Anna Nicole Smith coverage.
Another type of useless news is the blatantly obvious. You mean to tell me the malls are crowded because it’s Christmas time? Gasp! Although it’s usually pretty good with campus news, our beloved Technician is also guilty of such stories from time to time. It seems that, around this time every semester, we do a story about students going home for fall or spring break. Come on, Technician; it’s bad enough that you publish articles about Hillary Clinton written by bed-wetting liberals. You shouldn’t waste even more ink on stories that everyone knows already.
The last type of useless news is stuff that is simply unimportant. Firefighters saved a kitty from drowning in a cold river in New Jersey. Somebody caught a really big hammerhead shark. Who cares? This stuff belongs on the Animal Planet version of America’s Funniest Home Videos. Just because a cat is cute doesn’t mean it’s newsworthy.
Journalists must have more important news to talk about. I heard about the peanut butter food poisoning not from the news, which probably mentioned it briefly before moving to the celebrity rehab portion of the show, but from word of mouth. We have local elections every few years, but most people can’t name any local officials beyond Mayor Meeker. One of Dick Cheney’s aides is on trial and many countries struggle with rebellions and genocide, but journalists don’t spend much time covering stories such as these.
Shouldn’t local news stations spend more time talking about local government and things that are potentially dangerous to local citizens? Unless it ends up in my hamburger, Britney Spears’ hair doesn’t affect me, but salmonella in my PB & J does. There are enough important activities in the Triangle, the country and abroad that newspapers and TV don’t need to waste time and space with celebrities.
Maybe news shows should just let “news” about celebrities, sharks and kitties stay where it belongs, in the monologues by Jay Leno and David Letterman. Otherwise, the news will become more fodder for these comedians — just another joke.
E-mail Brian your favorite celebrity news story at [email protected].