Wednesday, March 07, 2007

News!?

I was listening to an interview last night with the creator of Monocle, a new "monthly magazine delivering the most original coverage in global affairs, business, culture and design." At least that's what they say.

They issued a "no celebrities" edict, meaning that their magazine will not be reporting on Robbie Williams getting out of rehab or Britney Spears going in and out. They referred to the recent, and admittedly untimely, death of Anna Nicole Smith. Without targeting her, he questioned whether her death should've warranted a Breaking News moment on BBC. I think that's a fair question.

I'll cop to the fact that many people can't think about the state of the world every moment of every day but is the media stretching our escapism by serving up such a smorgasboard of star sillyness? I would like to able to blame the media but a recent check of http://news.bbc.co.uk showed me that both their most read and most e-mailed story was not about Darfur, the West Bank or Iran. Instead it was about how supermodel Naomi Campbell will be spending her court-ordered community service time for throwing a phone at her housekeeper.

We are all a bunch of fickle puddin'-heads.

By the way, Ms. Campbell will be cleaning floors (though I'm sure you don't care). ;)

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