You know what I want? I want to know when CNN's Breaking News e-mail service turned into the Nothing But News About Dead Celebrities Service. Knowing how I could make it start sending me real news again would also be nice.
Yes, all right, the death of people like Michael Jackson does constitute actual news, I'll admit. But did I need to be kept updated on his condition three times in one hour? I note that said service apparently did not think the Iranian election was worth wasting any electrons on.
I mainly subscribed to the damned thing in the first place because every time there's a major natural disaster or a terrorist attack or something, it seems to happen while I'm asleep, and several times I've gotten up, poured myself a nice cup of coffee, sat down to check my e-mail, and discovered that every mailing list I belonged to had erupted into a heart-stopping explosion of posts saying, "OMG, is everyone all right!?" and "This is so awful! I'm so very, very sorry for everyone affected!", with any actual explanations of what the hell they're talking about buried somewhere deep in the e-mail avalanche or missing entirely. This is what happened on 9/11, for instance, and when the shuttle Columbia broke up. Believe me, it is not a good way to be introduced to bad news.
But I belong to far fewer mailing lists now, so that seems rather less likely to happen to me again. I dunno. Maybe it's time to just drop Dead Celebrity News and start getting my news from The Daily Show like normal people.
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Well, at the rate that celebrities have been dying off recently...
ReplyDeleteThere has been quite a spate of them recently, which is what prompted me to start really thinking about it, but I swear, when they don't have A-list celebrity deaths to inform me about, they go with the B-list ones. I am frequently urgently informed about the deaths of people I've never even heard of.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree. Michael Jackson passing is news but round the clock coverage is not warranted when North Korea has missiles aimed or way and unrest has broken out in Iran.
ReplyDeleteI do see that the death of the OxiClean guy made the lead story over at CNN.
whoops should have read aimed "our" way, but I'm sure you all figured that out.
ReplyDeleteYeah, exactly. We just seem to have a really warped sense of proportion when it comes to deciding what news is important. Or, for that matter, interesting.
ReplyDelete(And I didn't even notice your typo until you pointed it out. :))
Oh, and by the way, they felt it necessary to e-mail me the "breaking news" about OxiClean Guy, too. Because, yes, clearly this is something about which the public needs to be informed immediately.
ReplyDeleteI find it rather sad that the only "Breaking News" that CNN has deemed fit to send me after the announcement of Michael Jackson's death is the death of Billy Mays. No mention of the arrest of the president of Honduras or other unrest from that region.
ReplyDeleteMy feelings precisely! I really am beginning to wonder what the point is.
ReplyDeleteThis has been some week. Gale Storm for the "My little Margie Show" in the fifties, passed today also. One of my favorite shows as a kid.
ReplyDeleteYouall are right! TMZ, E and other shows and tabloids make it sound like the discovery of a cure for cancer.
A coup in Honduras, to me, is much more problematic than a celebrity passes.
I would rather know that missiles are pointed at Hawaii.
We`ve all made a mark on the world just by being born. We won`t get the same press. It all boils down to who made the most money
It's sad and quite frightening just how incredibly self absorbed we can be as a nation. I have to wonder, though. Are we unique in that respect, or do people of other nations suffer from the same thing to a certain degree?
ReplyDeleteI think self-absorption is human nature, but based on what contact I've had with the rest of the world, I think we Americans are especially, even frighteningly good at it.
ReplyDelete