Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Mee started hiccupping four weeks ago today and hasn't been able to stop. Some media outlets can't stop either, it seems.
NBC's Today show brought Jennifer and her mom to New York so they could interview her, and ended up moving the pair to another hotel to try to stem the avalanche of inquisition dropped on the girl by another network.
According to the St. Petersburg Times, "Representatives from ABC's Good Morning America called Jennifer's home 57 times on Sunday and slipped notes under her hotel room door, her family said."
Who needs to cover war in Iraq, health care, environmental issues, immigration and the like when you've got a teenage girl with all-galaxy case of the hiccups to pester?
i get the feeling that all of the mainstream news orginizations are produced by kids in their 20's and 30's, maybe it's because they grew up in a world of mtv, but the flavor of every news show is impatience, a kind of psychotic dashing and darting, nervously jumping from one item to the next, and then reporting on the reporting, all the while, the screen filling, scrolling, no margin wasted,explosions of mostly useless information...it's too exhausting for me, and of course, anyone who relies on TV for information is woefully un-informed,...so what's it for?
This goes along with your post on our celebrity-obsessed culture. It does seem like the news media is obsessed with the trivial and unimportant stuff, and news that actually affects us is crowded out. It's not just TV, either. The lead story on the Bee website right now is about Anna Nicole Smith's family.
Well written, Swift.
I get my news from Google news. When I am bored I will switch it to UK, India or Australia. Even there its generally all the same news from a different perspective.
The best part is if I find something interesting I can keep digging and find out a lot more. How can T.V. compete?
...and another thing...do they really believe that having 3 or 4 rude, bickering, talking heads argueing in short bursts,{for fear of being interrupted}, brings clarity to an issue?
I'm wondering if doctors have been consulted in this case. As far as the coverage, it's called human interest. It's not intended to be "hard news" If you are going to the morning talk shows for hard news your in the wrong place. They are suppose to be fun and give general information, not in depth analysis of news events.