CNN (Completely Nonsensical "News")
I used to respect this news-gathering and broadcast pioneer. However, that was back in the days when I was a junior high student reclining on shag carpeting in far-too-snug-for-me lavender Gloria Vanderbilt jeans.
Today, the "content" focus, if you will, seems to neatly fit into just a few pat categories. Regard this random front page sampling, May 4, 2008:
Category I: News of the Duh
- Poor Suffer More Pain Than the Rich
With stock photo of Excedrin montage...for those who don't grasp the subtle nuances of the word "pain."
- Teens Texting, Sexting
"Sexting"? Ewww...pls lt tht 1 die sk8trboi!
Category II: Babies, Babies, Dingo Ate My Baby! (Tales About and Related to the Miracle of Birth)
- Girl Carries Secret Baby to Hospital - Still Attached
She "jogged" to the hospital after giving birth alone in her shower - so maybe this tough teen is pretty newsworthy after all
Category III: On the Lagging Edge of Socio-Science
- The Man Cave: Why HE Needs a Room of His Own
The word "mantuary" needs to be smothered in man-cave bat guano and left to putrify.
- One Boy, One Girl, One Dorm Room
...and soon we may have a repeat of the attached-baby story above. See, the CNN News cycle just feeds itself!
Category IV: The Healthful Scold
- Student Educates Self, Loses 180 Pounds"
Perhaps he taught himself to get his ass away from the computer and CNN.com.
- Moms - Don't Forget "Me Time"
Just another thing to worry about among things you might not be doing right.
Category V: Christ, That's Weird (Not to Mention Completely Irrelevant to My Daily Life)
- Man Dials 911 With His Toes (with video)
Just like priceless footage of the Green Zone, the video is essential to capturing the drama.
To give CNN credit, there are a couple links to stuff in Zimbabwe, the electric car and the Iraq War. So it's not complete Weekly World News territory...yet.
Ted Turner, get back from your buffalo ranch and pay some attention to your operations. You can do better than this.
posted by globalchameleon @ 10:05 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Girl Carries Secret Baby to the Hospital--Still Attached.
I love how one of the people in the story calls this a "heartwarming outcome"!
There is nothing "heartwarming" about this story--it's horriific in every respect: that another teen girl got pregnant, that she had to keep it a secret, that she popped it out in the shower at home, that they had no working telephone or neighbors they could trust in an emergency, that she had to carry it several blocks while still attached...all of it is horrible. Where's the heartwarming part? That they didn't both die in the street? If that's the measure of a happy story these days, we really have hit rock bottom...
I weep for the future. I weep for it openly. And because I am not rich, it is likely to be a most painful weeping.
The apocalypse is clearly nigh. Time to order more survival gear online. Using my toes.
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