You Say News, I Say Potato

Click for larger version. And check ABC for tomorrow's followup: "New Revelations Could Hurt Socks with Vital 'Feline Values' Voters"

Note that the comments on the right are unaltered from the original story.

On Tuesday morning I made the mistake of watching morning news. CNN (or perhaps MSNBC) was trumpeting a "major bombshell." The bombshell? That a man slept with someone other than his wife. This man was not a moral crusader and therefore a hypocrite. He as not sleeping with a prostitute. He was not currently running for office or up for reelection. The entire news value of the story was "man has affair": a "major bombshell" according to our breathless media.

Here is some more hot-breaking "news": a woman was in the vague physical proximity of an event that was itself of dubious news value. Great work "Investigative Team." The "Investigative Team" site is a tawdry bad joke: not much investigation but a lot of hit jobs. My favorite:

The released documents also bring back reminders of scandal, as was previously reported on the Blotter on ABCNews.com earlier today.
[...]
On the day she testified before a federal grand jury investigating the Whitewater land deal, in January 1996, her official calendar says simply, "No Public Schedules."

I don't know about you but when I see a calendar entry that says "No Public Schedules" I'm instantly reminded of Whitewater.

Thank heavens our media has its priorities straight and focuses on the truly important.