Monday, June 13, 2005

news and caring rant

I am afraid my inner-Andy-Rooney is showing.

Today, one of the Yahoo news headlines stated that a young actress was converting to the religion of her famous actor boyfriend. I wouldn't even know the name of this actress except that when the two of them appeared recently on a day-time program, his actions must have been strange enough to cause comment and satire to flow in numerous places, enough that I would learn the actress' name.

I don't care about her or her relationship to him or her deciding to convert. I care even less about the famous actor and actress who may have had an affair while making a silly movie about married assasins. I am not interested. I don't want to know about celebrities' personal lives, their foibles, their choices.

This declaration of not caring is added to my not caring about people on reality tv shows. I also don't care about anything on MTV/VH-1. Or E, the entertainment network.

At lunch today, there was a muted television in the restaurant that was turned to CNN. They showed the crowds waiting for a verdict in the trial of a famous muscian who sleeps with young boys. Mostly, I have avoided anything to do with trial. He should be tried, but among the things I want to focus on in my life, this particular musician and his weird (and possibly horribly illegal) actions are not something I am interested in hearing about. The prosecutor, judge and defense counsel are all being paid to care about this trial. And I hope that the jury will do its sworn duty to deliberate and judge him.

There are many things in the news I care about, or at least feel that I should know about as a responsible citizen in a democracy. Breathless celebrity coverage is not one of them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I totally agree. The celeb coverage is overdown. Even the BBC Worldservice (gasp!) was full of coverage of the verdict in that trial you alluded to.

What ever happen to the journalism of Edward R. Murrow's generation?