 I dubbed 2007 the year of the bimbo because of the enormous amount of time dedicated on what was supposed to be news channels, and even our plain old nightly news to the saga of Anna Nicole Smith, the trials and tribulations of Paris Hilton, and the various on goings of Brittany Spears and Lindsay Lohan.
Despite the fact that our country was fighting two bloody wars and the death of such greats as Molly Ivins and Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson, one quarter to one half of the news on many nights and on many shows was wasted on the afore mentioned bimbos. 2009 is shaping up to be nearly as bad. For the past two nights, the Rachel Maddow Show has been pre-empted to instead dedicate the full hour to Michael Jackson. Those "news" shows that haven't dedicated their entire show to Jackson, spent a quarter to a half of their time on story. Just as with the death of Anna Nicole Smith, we are getting a play by play on everything from the custody of the children to the location and details of the funeral and burial. The coverage of Anna Nicole's death was over the top and excessive. The coverage of Michael Jackson's death is turning out to be just as bad or possibly even worse. |
Now I will grant you that Michael Jackson's impact on history was certainly greater than that of Anna Nicole Smith. So, I would expect more attention to be paid to his death over hers. However, I don't think we needed that much of our news dedicated to Anna Nicole. That we are getting even more time spent on Michael Jackson is ridiculous. According to the Pew Research Center, 18% of last week's news overall was dedicated to the death of the "king of pop", even though the story did not break until Friday. Compare that to the 19% given to the election protests in Iran, 11% of over-coverage of Governor Mark Sanford's affair, and a measly 7% each dedicated to the health care reform debate and the economic crisis. But as you can see from the above chart, cable news was the worst offender. It dedicated 36% to the story of Michael Jackson. Iran was a distant 2nd at 21%. Network TV, on the other hand, spent a mere 22% on the death of Jackson, but gave 3% to the death of Farah Fawcett and 2% to the death of Ed McMahon. One might surmise from the above numbers that little else was going on in the world that was worthy of news coverage. However, when you examine the breakdown by types of media, other stories of what should be considered with greater importance appear. For example, radio gave 2% of its time time to the unrest in Myanmar. Both cable and network TV offered 2% of their time to North Korea. Pakistan got 3% of online coverage while Afghanistan received 4% of newspaper coverage. The DC Metro Crash garnered 7% from network TV, online, and newspapers. Cable TV seemed to not even notice the actions of the Supreme Court. The rest dedicated about 2% to coverage of the court with the exception of the newspapers which gave a full 4%. So clearly other stories were happening, we just weren't hearing very much about them. The rest of this year has not been much better. The week of June 8-14, while not the top story, Sarah Palin vs. David Letterman took up 5% of radio coverage. May 25 - 31, 2009, cable spent 4% of its time on the Blagojevich Scandal. During a week in May that included an earthquake in China, the contraversy over Miss California's answer at the Miss USA Pagent garnered more time from cable and radio. In fact, the earthquake didn't even make the top ten overall. Here is my list of things that I didn't need to hear about for more than 5 minutes total: - The Death of a Celebrity (any celeb whether David Carradine, Michael Jackson or Farah Fawcett)
- Answers Given at a Beauty Pagent (anytime on this is too much)
- Political Sex Scandals (Clinton, Sanford, Ensign, Edwards, Spitzer...)
- The Arrest of a Celebrity
- Celebrities in Rehab
- Celebrity Custody Battles
- Outrage over statements by a Talk Show Host (David Letterman, Bill Maher, Bill O'Reilly...)
- Outrage over statements by a Performer/Celebrity (Dixie Chicks, Linda Ronstadt...)
- Governors talking Secession (unless the threat is real)
- Celebrity/Political Hairstyles or Clothing or lack thereof (Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction, Brittany Spears shaves her head, Michelle Obama's ballgown...)
According to Pew, 64% of those surveyed felt that too much time was given to the Michael Jackson story. One would think that numbers like that would impact our press. Yet even though that report came out July 1st, Jackson still dominated coverage on July 2nd. Enough already! There is real news to be covered. The public is demanding it. We are sick of the fluff. Bring back the news and leave the tabloids to cover the fluff. |
