BobHarris.com - Anna Nicole Smith: a very slow news day

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Anna Nicole Smith: a very slow news day

Tag it now -

Thursday, 08 February 2007

Condolences to those few directly affected by Anna Nicole Smith's sudden demise.

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Still, while CNN and FOX go into 24/7 wall-to-wall dead Playmate mode, here are a few other things they could be talking about today:

• North Korea may agree to disarm its nuclear program.

• Hamas and Fatah have reached an accord giving the Palestinians a united front.

• NATO's top commander in Afghanistan says more troops will be needed to fight the Taliban, but many large NATO nations don't want to send them.

• Iran has just tested a missile which can strike US ships in the Persian Gulf, and they promise to retaliate for any attack. Still, Bush's advisers are pushing for war.

So you can see why Anna Nicole's death is getting all the coverage. Slow news day.

Incidentally, you're looking at a montage of the front pages of CBS News, ABC News, MSNBC, CNN, and FOX News, at 7 pm est. Every single goddam network.

To review: news shows are, yes, shows. They do not make money by providing us useful information. They make money by providing us... to the advertisers.

And according to the Google News "Most Popular" section, we care a great deal about dead Playmates, stalker astronauts in diapers, Ryan O' Neal getting arrested, and Britney Spears not being a lesbian.

So that's what we get.

When we can't find Iran on a map but we're willing to kill Iranians -- and then we wonder why the world doesn't exactly run the way we figured -- it's not CNN's fault.

It's ours.