Thursday, May 3, 2012

What's news and what's not

There's been tons written all over everywhere about how "news" has become entertainment programming.

That's pretty much true.

The other morning the CBC started out their "World Report" with a story about what might be revealed at the Victoria Stafford murder trial that day.

Victoria was the kid who was murdered by a couple of loser crack-heads from Woodstock a couple of years ago. A sad sad story.

But is speculating about what might happen in court on any given day any kind of a "news" story? Should it lead a newscast that purports to be a serious news program of global reach?

No and no again.

It's the same pretty much everywhere you go for your news.

Many of the US sites are just full of speculation about John Edwards' mistress these days.

Edwards is an also-ran in the richest sense of the word. Also a major league slimer. But why does the fact that he dropped his trousers for gals other than his cancer stricken wife constitute news?

It doesn't.

What else is on the news radar?

RIM stocks falter. That's news?

Gingrich drops out of GOP race. That's news?

Bin Laden's diary is big news these days. Now that Obama has made the Osama kill a central plank in his re-election campaign we'll be hearing tons and tons of imaginary updates from bin Laden's diary.

Oh, and don't forget the Facebook IPO. A bunch of self-dealing self-interested insiders keep issuing press releases and the media pass this garbage on as though it's important news.

At last report Zuckerman values his lucky strike in the $100 billion range. Is that news?

Zuckerman's lucky strike can disappear as quickly as it appeared. One billion is too rich a valuation for Facebook, never mind a hundred.

But check your news sites.

All this stuff is considered news.

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