I Miss OJ and Nancy Kerrigan!

You know, TV has a way of ruining everything. 

I mean I am already tired of the Olympics and they haven’t even started yet. I am tired of the presidential race and we still have 100 days to go. I am tired of Penn State. Tired of the Catholic Church. Tired of Wall Street cheaters walking free.

And I am really tired of this red-headed clown who shot all those people in Colorado. I don’t want to see him anymore. I don’t want to hear about him anymore. I really don’t give a damn what his mother has to say.

But TV latches onto a story and it will not let it go.  Do you remember a few years ago when Nancy Kerrigan had her knees bashed in by the other little tart of an ice skater. They were on the news forever. Remember what bounced them off the evening news?  OJ’s white Bronco chase through L.A. Then we had OJ for at least ten years.

News should be that. New.  Not the same story over and over and over and over again.

But give the media a chance to drain every drop of blood from the turnip and they will. And my favorite is when the local stations add in their local color. “The connection between the teen shooter in Norway and the Dallas Ft Worth area. Next right after this message from McDonalds.”  And you know what the connection was?  We sell guns like the kind he used to kill all those campers. BFD! Why channels 8, 4 and 5 and whoever else is out there interviewed every gunshop owner on either side of the Trinity and got the same answer. “Yeah, we sell those guns right here in Texas.”

Or my favorite. I was living in LA when a volcano came up through the ground in some Central American dictatorship. There was satellite video and overhead video and some poor dumbass stringer traipsed out there and shot footage a the lava came right at him. But the news readers in LA had to give it a local spin, as if the death of 400 brown skinned neighbors to our south wasn’t bad enough. “In a field less that a hundred miles from the summer home of actor Gary Busey… a volcano erupted…”  I swear to God…the local connection was a washed-up, has-been alcoholic actor lived in a summer home about an hour and a half from the scene of the destruction. Really?

To be fair, I think Busey lived closer to the epicenter than that, but the point is, who cares?  And why is that even part of the story. And did the LA stations have a follow up the next night about the human tragedy amidst the fires and lava rivers flowing through that tiny country? Nope. There was a scandal in the fast food sellers at Dodger Stadium.  And the news media wanted answers from the mayor and his auditors.

From volcanoes to hot dogs. 24 hours. It makes a difference. And I wouldn’t mind that if they did that with every story. I understand you have to stay on top of some stories. But know the difference. No when it is news and when it is fluff.  And don’t keep giving us more and more fluff.

Somebody wanted to know why NBC’s Today Show was having such poor ratings. I’ll tell you. Too much fluff.  Stuff that doesn’t really make a difference. How to melt chocolate for little Johnny’s birthday cake isn’t nearly as vital as chasing the crooks who are stealing your money on Wall Street and getting away with it. But guess what we get? Chocolate man.

And we keep getting it.  Why?  Because the marketing executives field research and focus groups and the little old ladies sitting in those focus groups don’t want to hear about crime and drugs and taxes and the cure to deficit. They want Chocolate Man.

The TV is on in my studio as I type this. The Olympics are almost here., the promo says with a great deal of exuberance and fan fare. There is even a jingle. And I can’t wait for them to be over. Cowboy summer camp is about to start. I can’t wait for the Super Bowl to be here and gone.

Ah oh, they’ve got the Colorado shooter’s aunt on at ten. More fluff. Not news. Maybe we could get her doing a song and dance number with Chocolate Man.