Is it just me, or has ridiculously irrelevant celebrity gossip taken over the news lately? Sure, celebrity gossip has always had its place in tabloids and on E!, but lately it seems to be monopolizing legitimate news sources as well. To the extent that any news sources are legitimate, that is.On CNN.com (while this article was being written), the top 13 news stories included two about the goings-on in Iran, one on a new E. coli outbreak (Spinach and lettuce and mushrooms, oh my!), one about Britney Spears’ latest entry to rehab and three about Anna Nicole Smith.
As I write this, Nancy Grace is discussing “Anna Nicole Smith: The Legal Showdown!” with a frightening amount of fervor. It’s inescapable.
So what gives? Since when does the headline “UK’s Iraq pullout to begin in weeks” belong directly next to the headlines “Smith’s mom: ‘She liked downers'” and “Britney Spears lands in rehab”?
They do share the same space, obviously, but they never should. There are more stories about Anna Nicole than the war and more photos of Britney’s shaved head than, well, anything.
MSNBC.com has even given Anna Nicole her own heading in the column of news topics. Not to be crass, but the funniest one I’ve seen is “Anna Nicole’s body starting to decompose, judge says.” It’s nice that we can get to-the-minute updates about the state of the corpse of a woman who was little more than brain dead when she was still alive, isn’t it?
And is anyone supposed to be surprised that her body is beginning to decompose after being lifeless for a week? Actually, the decomposition process probably started much earlier for Smith. The combination of TrimSpa and whatever recreational drugs she was undoubtedly using most likely had her rotting internally long before she died. I did say I wouldn’t be crass, didn’t I? My apologies.
But really, did you ever watch “The Anna Nicole Smith Show”? She was barely able to utter an intelligible sentence, and when she could it was usually to order her “friend” Howard K. Stern to bring her more plates of Italian food. That Anna, she was so outrageous. Not that I ever watched it, of course.
As for Britney, she enters rehab, escapes, shaves her head herself because no one will do it for her, gets a couple of trashy tattoos (both lips – one red, one pink), dons a platinum blonde wig and reenters rehab. What a weekend for Britney! The sad thing is, I didn’t even have to dig for this news. These bits of information were imposed on me by all of my surrounding news sources – newspapers, Google News, CNN, FOX, NBC, word of mouth. Does no one have anything better to talk about? Does it make me a hypocrite to discuss it now?
Anyway, most media outlets and psychotherapists are calling Britney’s shaved head a cry for help. I can only hope it is, for her sake, because she certainly can’t pull off the bald look. My favorite headline of hers, by the way, is “How Britney Spears lost hair, mind.” Classic.
It’s a shame that almost everyone everywhere knows all of this already, but people are clueless when it comes to real news, and the news sources are not solving the problem.
There is a time and place for entertainment news, but it should be saved for the entertainment page, and it should certainly not share the spotlight with stories of actual consequence.
If you want a story of actual consequence, take Paris Hilton’s 26th birthday party, which took place the other day. According to The New York Post, after being snubbed by nearly all of her friends, “Guests reported seeing Hilton play with a monkey while a band of midgets led a pack of goats around the room.”
Now that’s what I call news.