Mister Comedy

I don’t sleep too well these days. I think it’s because I’m a news junkie. I am addicted to news. I have bookmarked thirty-five online newspapers (current favorites include the North Korean News Agency and the Moose Jaw Times-Herald ) and on cable I’m usually flipping between Headline News and MSNBC. I’m also pretty sure that my news addiction is to blame for my astounding lack of productivity–yeah, I may not have updated my blog in four days, but I have a good understanding of the forces underlying the global market collapse.

There’s really too much to process. I swear CNN Headline News should be called ADD–on the screen is the guy telling the story, a caption underneath the guy telling you what the guy is telling you, the weather for forty-seven cities, basketball scores, and I’m pretty sure I saw someone in a small box doing an interpretive dance about the story. The worst thing about network news is the teaser ads. Like, “Coming up at ten, we’ll tell you about a common household substance that can kill”…NO, TELL US NOW! There’s people dying in their kitchens and your sitting on a story! And reporters on the scene aren’t any more Pulitzer-worthy. The other night, a reporter at the scene of an accident said “details are sketchy.” THEN THEY’RE NOT…DETAILS!!! The most ludicrous news cliche is “police are baffled.” Really? ‘Baffled’ seems a bit strong, don’t ya think? I’ve never seen a bunch of cops walking around a crime scene shrugging their shoulders-”Jeez, I got nothin’ here–not a clue. I better call someone, because I am thoroughly confused.”

I lived in L.A. during the Rodney King nightmare, and it led me to this conclusion. The next time L.A. burns (because it will happen again), I hope the first buildings torched are tv news studios, for being the accelerant. I would love to see video of some smug, self-righteous anchor sitting at his desk reading off the teleprompter “We’ve got reports of a fire at–MY DESK! MY DESK IS ON FIRE!”

Seems like there are two extremes in broadcast journalism. There are talking heads that yell a lot and interrupt each other, and there’s Charlie Rose. I think Charlie is great. He never seems fazed by a subject–frankly, he never seems all that interested, either. Every time he puts his chin in his hand and leans forward, I expect him to either nod off, or start quietly chuckling as if to a joke he heard once. But I’ll take his disinterest over the yelling any day. I half-expect the host of one of these roundtable discussions to just start screaming “Shut up! Shut up all of you! I will turn this studio around if you people don’t shut up!”

As if it’s not bad enough that stories on tv news are all too short to be useful (Now I understand fundamentalist Islam, thanks to that sixty second feature) , time that could be used for thoughtful analysis is given instead to entertainment news. Now I’m as grateful as anyone to learn that Clay Aiken is actually gay (Whew! I won my office pool!), it’s not news!!! When you only have thirty minutes to give a rundown of the news of the day, maybe you should prioritize. I’m guessing the day Clay came out, there were at least one or two things that could have been mentioned about Darfur, or AIDS, or, oh, I don’t know, the election that will determine the future of the country.

So I think for an entire day, I’m going to avoid the news media. If a crisis happens somewhere in the world for the next twenty-four hours, it’ll still be a crisis tomorrow.