You Report, We Decide

Recently, much has been made about the news coverage dedicated to dubious celebrities, single white female kidnappings and wardrobe malfunctions. Paris Hilton's recent 3 week stint on the porridge generated hours of undue television time, as did the activities of her contemporaries like Nicole Ritchie, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. Updates on kidnappings like those of Lacy Petersen and Natalee Holloway were so pervasive that a couple of young women decided to stage their own abductions simply in hopes of drawing attention to themselves. Thanks to Harvey Levin and TMZ.com, minor incidents involving Mel Gibson, Don Imus and Michael Richards became major scandals, with the fallouts headlining the news for several weeks.

In the grand scheme of things, these stories are trivial and the amount of airtime they're given is laughable. The United States is at war with militant Islam. The Bush Administration is working to protect the country from terrorists but is facing constant interference from Congressional Democrats and the news media. The Bush tax cuts have led to unprecedented economic prosperity. The President and Congress have failed at passing a bill that would give amnesty to illegal aliens because the American people stood up to the government. Meanwhile, Islamic terrorists plot more attacks on the United States and the U.S. legal community does everything in its power to make us more vulnerable to such attacks. There's more than enough hard news each day to fill an entire 24-hour cable network's programming. So focusing on all this Hollywood garbage is hardly necessary, right?

In the last several weeks two media members have put the public on notice that they will no longer play the game. Mika Brzezinski, a newsreader on MSNBC climbed atop her high horse by publicy refusing to cover the Paris Hilton saga. On a show with Joe Scarborough, Brzezinski was supposed to read a wire story about Hilton's incarceration. Instead, she attempted to light her script on fire in an on-air protest. When the page failed to catch fire, she proceeded to tear it up. In the following hour, she used a paper shredder to dispose of the offending story. Needless to say, Mika expected and, in some cases received, congratulations for her petulant act of shameless grandstanding. This past weekend, Jim Pinkerton, a conservative columnist, made his regular weekly appearance on the Saturday show FoxNews Watch. During the program, the subject of Lindsay Lohan's DUI arrest came up. Pinkerton, a normally reasonable commentator, ascended his bully pulpit to scold the public and the news networks for covering this relatively frivolous news event. He "took a stand" by ripping up a piece of paper in disgust.

News personalities have occasionally indulged in this kind of self-important obstinance before. Some will remember that Keith Olbermann refused to dignify the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal several years ago, as he deemed it unworthy of his analysis. The networks will often put up with the tantrums because such tantrums can be portrayed as acts of populist rebellion...as if the newsreader is somehow speaking up for those who feel the same way but can't be heard.

What we must understand is that television networks are in the business of making money, first and foremost. Networks like FoxNews and CNN depend on ratings to stay in business. The fact that some networks seem more interested in presenting high speed car chases than in tracking government waste is a reflection of the audience at large. In truth, there's only so much hard news the average person is willing to watch. In order for a news network to succeed, it has to give the audience what the audience wants. At the end of the day, the news business is a service industry. So it doesn't make much sense for the employee to try to dictate to the customer what should be of interest to the customer.

More irritating than anything is this need for people like Brzezinski, Pinkerton and Olbermann to make such a public spectacle of themselves. If these people don't want to discuss what they believe to be trivial matters, they have every right to take it up in private with their bosses. But these public displays of protest are pathetic cries for help. These people are so concerned about getting their disdain on record that they ignore the fact that no one is interested in their opinions. These on-air displays are no less embarrassing than the tantrums of a 5-year-old in a grocery store. These attention-seeking newsreaders may think they're above reporting this kind of news, but they work for the viewers. As the ratings numbers show, the viewers want these stories covered. The customer is always right. You work for us and we want to see you dance. So dance, monkeys!