CNN, Anna Nichole Smith, & Dirty Laundry

Consider this my version of an electronic scream of rage over the never ending saga Anna Nichole Smith at CNN.



Thank you.

Granted, CNN, FOX, and other big newscorps are in it for the money. What I can't understand how do the managers at CNN determine that this is what people want to see. Focus groups? Polls? Web hits? Anyone have a clue?

I have to know, are Americans really so shallow they prefer to watch the meltdown of this poor wretch than, I don't know, real news? Or is the media intentially trying to dull our minds?

We're in deep kimchi either way.

"If we report tragedy, we report the news"

I agree with you 100%. I too believe it was a way of distracting people from some real news. I remember when she 1st died, my friend sent me a text message saying, "Anna Nicole Smith died today. Are you gonna be okay???" I mean, I feel bad for her family, and for the people who are going to miss her, and all that other stuff, but it isn't like this woman cured cancer or found a solution to world hunger. She was a D grade celebrity that bit the dust. They should have mentioned it at the of ET news and called it a day.

Ya, I have to definately agree that covering all this celeb BS in the US is a distraction from the Real news happening in the world. I get news from Canada, US and Britian, and I can tell you that the US style of reportage is the most vapid and inane. Sorry, but there is no reason why the 6 PM news should devote 15 minutes of their coverage to the death of any celebrity. There are exceptions of course, like if the person dying was a former president and such, but even then it shouldn't dominate the news.

[edit on 19-3-2007 by sardion2000]

I think the Anna Nicole/Britney coverage may, just may have had something to do with Bush's proposed 2008 budget, which of course involves turning even more of the country into a giant private piggy bank for corporations. It have been shoved off the main pages by "Teh Surge!" nonsense, but was going to get covered sooner or later. One of the proposed changes was to the Estate Tax, repealing it entirely. While removing $28 billion from Medicaid. Someone was eventually going to notice this insanity when the Surging stopped being interesting (who comes up with these banal administration catchphrases anyhow?) and it just so happened it was a good three weeks to bury bad news. With blanket coverage of two complete idiotic nonentities.

I would like nothing more than a moratorium on celebrities in the news. However, I have had to face the facts that I am in the minority.
I think this column explains it pretty well:

Despite a lack of any discernible talent, education, scruples, manners, modesty or underpants, she is bigger than ever. Her hegemony over the popular culture is so pervasive that a Google search retrieves nearly 16 million "Paris Hilton" citations (although some small portion of those may be references to the Hilton Hotel in Paris), compared with only 3.5 million for "Hillary Clinton," a woman who would be president.

The nation's biggest wire service — which provides breaking news to tens of thousands of media outlets — vowed last month to ignore the trivial pursuits of hotel magnate Conrad Hilton's leggy, blond great-granddaughter, who combines the sex appeal of a Swedish bikini model with the survival skills of a Norway rat.

Source

Just before Valentine's Day, the AP's entertainment editor declared a Paris news blackout. "Next week, the print team is planning an unconventional experiment: We are NOT going to cover Paris Hilton," Jesse Washington wrote in a leaked internal memo. "Barring any major, major news, we are not going to put a single word about Paris on the wire."

By the last day of February, the noble experiment was over. The wire service joined everyone else in reporting that police had stopped the 26-year-old Hilton after she exceeded the speed limit on Sunset Boulevard — less "major, major news" than force of habit — and had ticketed her for driving with a suspended license, impounding her blue Bentley.

This column is refering to Paris Hilton, but a quick search on Anna Nicole does the same thing. I came up with 16.1mil for ANS and only 473,000 for Hillary.

This celebrity news is a distraction but I do not think the gov't is perpetrating anything here. It is our own fault.

Ratings for cable news channels skyrocketed in the days following the Anna Nicole Smith case, so anyone who didn't follow it would have been pretty dumb from a business pov.

Originally posted by WellSee
This column is refering to Paris Hilton, but a quick search on Anna Nicole does the same thing. I came up with 16.1mil for ANS and only 473,000 for Hillary.

Anna Nicole Smith is far easier on the eyes (probably even now in the grave) than Hillary is.

I have to agree with the majority on this topic. Anna Nicole's death should be covered on entertainment news, and not on CNN or the like. If they feel they must show that crap on CNN, then have a 1/2 hour show devoted to celeb/gossip news. It does feel like they are trying to sidetrack the public from more important current events. Just my opinion.