Commentary:
I am getting impatient, cranky, irritated and bilious. Under the heading of "I couldn't care less," are headline news stories.
Who cares that Paula Poundstone was in rehab and is charged with some kind of bad stuff with kids? Who cares that one of The Backstreet Boys is back from rehab so the tour can begin again? Does anyone give a damn about the story that has transfixed America the sexual meanderings of Gary Condit?
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Do we get the media we deserve? |
And to be even more bilious do I really want to hear that Pamela Wallin will undergo surgery for colon cancer? Is she going to be a poster girl like Katie Kourik whose husband died of the same cancer?
Why do celebrated people have to share their tragedies with us. Every time a big star gets prostate cancer treatment I have to hear about it? Not I. Joe Torre and Arnold Palmer were both being treated. Do I care about poster boys like Mike Wallace or Dick Cavett for clinical depression?
Is there any merit in being a tell-all society, especially when the "all" has no bearing on anything but our need to pry. Why do we love to "dish the dirt?" Someone it may have been Horace Walpole - said something like: "Great minds think about ideas, mediocre minds think about events and small minds talk about people."
Enuff. By the way when will people understand that "I could care less," means exactly the opposite of what we think it means. And who carries out the trash?
Is the media to blame for our fascination with people or is it the slavering herd (all of us) fascinated by trash? Can you admit you have been enslaved by the Gary Condit saga? Do all the media live by the axiom: "If it bleeds it leads?" Did Dan Rather get his just desserts when he had to backtrack on his resolve to keep the Gary Condit story out of The CBS Evening News? Does anyone really care what the guy said to Connie Chung?
Do we get the media we deserve? Was Conrad Black propelled by anything more than hubris?
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Posted: September 03, 2001
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