Many important things happened this summer. I’m almost sure of it. But apart from a few notable exceptions, I really couldn’t tell you what they were.
Let me preface this by saying I was often without things to do at work this summer. And like any good intern, I resisted the urge to sign on to Gmail or Facebook, and instead kept CNN on constant refresh. And Time. And sometimes Cracked.com, but that was really only during my lunch break.
I can of course remember Michael Jackson, who still occasionally reaches “Trending Topic” status on Twitter, and has dominated CNN headlines for the past few months despite being, well, deceased.
And we can’t forget Jon and Kate, with their eight kids and soap opera of infidelity, tearful interviews and idiocy. I’ve never seen a single episode of their show but I’m pretty sure I could give you a fairly complete life history just from glancing at CNN headlines. I also know that Gosselin’s girlfriend is not a fame-whore. Because she’s been saying so, almost every day, to what seems like every media outlet there is. Right.
I’m fairly certain there are other things we could be talking about.
Don’t get me wrong, I think celebrity gossip is an essential part of life. It’s what you look at when you absolutely can’t study any longer but feel too lazy to get up and actually do something, or when you need to shut your brain off for a few minutes. It’s fun, and harmless. But it shouldn’t be dominating the news.
What makes it even worse is that it very obviously doesn’t have to be this way. Take a few minutes to browse Time, which manages to give adequate room to real news and quality pieces of analysis, while still leaving plenty of space for popular culture and lifestyle, or BBC News. I feel smarter just by looking at them. No such luck with CNN, Fox and the like.
It would be unfair to blame the writers or management for this depressing trend. The media is a business, and like every business, it needs to make a profit. So if what people want to read is “Celine Dion is pregnant with second child” or “Pole dance ends with face plant” or even “Teen targeted with online sex ad” (courtesy of CNN’s Aug. 18 headlines), there’s not very much anyone can do.
At least going online still beats actually turning on the TV and watching the news there. Despite Anderson Cooper still being awesome in every way, there’s something fundamentally wrong with having to watch half an hour’s worth of commercials, bad jokes and babbling to get five minutes of real news. Most of which ends with an invitation to find out more, online. No thanks.
So what’s the solution? Besides getting the American public actually interested in what’s going on (ha!), I have no idea. But I vote Britney and her friends exit the headlines and return to Perez Hilton where they belong, so that I can go back to enjoying my celebrity gossip in one place, and my news in another.