Newsworthiness

Now I understand that even news stations need to have some sort of entertainment value, but sometimes they hang on things a little too long. Since when did the so called “Iggygate” become such a big story? I realize that Ellen Degeneres is a huge celebrity but this story is not worth the attention it’s been getting. However, I can see why people are following this story so much. Ellen’s big emotional breakdown provided all the fuel for the inferno that is “Iggygate.” Even major news stations like CNN have been covering the story for the past 3 days.

I think that it’s no mystery that the only reason this is such a big story is the fact that Ellen is a celebrity. I also think that this is part of a bigger problem. The problem is that people are too obsessed with celebrity news. It’s like people care more about this dog being taken away from two 12 year old girls than anything else. Maybe it’s me, but I think that this story should have only received about five minutes of attention.

Dallas Cowboys

I like football just like a lot of you out there, but the hype for this past weekend’s Cowboys vs. Patriots game was unreal. Every local TV station had some kind of Cowboys special on it on most if not everyday. Okay so they were 5-0, there are only so many ways you can say “your Dallas Cowboys are 5-0.” You’d think most people would be able to understand the first 30 times they heard it.

It’s probably obvious by now that I’m not a Cowboys fan, but I wouldn’t want to hear about a team I did like every single day. The game was even a top story on the news. Who needs to hear about corrupt officials in the city when there’s a football game on Sunday that could “potentially” be a Super Bowl preview! This is a perfect example of how news organizations are more worried about ratings than actual news. Now I'm sure that if a bigger story happened, it would have higher priority than football. Then again this is Dallas, and the Cowboys take up a big part of peoples lives, which is unfortunate! I mean it's only a game. Maybe it's just me but I don't think that football should be the most important thing in my life.

This kind of reminds me of that 20/80 conversation we had in class. About how 20% percent of the country controls the other 80%. I guess football serves as a distraction for the 80%, while the other 20% deals with the serious issues.

Channel 5 has lost their minds!

The other day I was watching the 10 o’clock news on channel 5. Like all the other news stations, I was expecting the top story to be your typical murder or kidnapping story. But after this particular top story, I would have preferred a story that would attempt to make me live in fear. It turns out that the top story was one about kids being scared of a Halloween display at Wal-Mart. Are the people at channel 5 serious? With all the things going on in the world right now, kids being scared at Wal-Mart seemed the most important? About five minutes later there was a story about a sex offender who was working at a middle school as a janitor. Was there really confusion about which story was more important?
Ok, so you don’t really hear about kids being scared at Wal-Mart that often, but there is a reason for that. It’s because no one cares. Yeah, little kids getting nightmares at Wal-Mart can be manipulated into a unique story, but that doesn’t make it important. I’m sure if you asked most people about which is more important between a sex offender or kids at Wal-Mart. That most of them would pick the story about the sex offender.

Enough of O.J! Nobody is thirsty anymore!

It always amazes me how celebrity news always beats out real news. I mean whenever a celebrity couple breaks up, gets a DUI, or loses there dog, it’s always in with the top stories. I mean come on, do people really care if a celebrity pet goes missing? I bet most people didn’t even know that celebrity had a pet until they lost it! Anyways, I’ve noticed that in the past few days that the OJ Simpson story is on every news station, on some it’s even considered one of the top stories. I mean yeah, he tried to rob a place, but does it really deserve this many days of coverage. The only reason why this story is not some 20 second segment is solely because he is a celebrity. He has played professional football, he was involved in an extremely high profile murder case, and now its robbery. I guess we can all agree that he has one hell of a resume, and I mean that in the most negative way possible.

One would have to be blind to not see some kind of bias here. This story fulfills so many different kinds. I mean take your pick it has structural, visual, commercial, and temporal. A picture of OJ in handcuffs again will capture a lot of people’s attention, which I think is kind of sad, because I really don’t care about celebrity anything, but that’s just me. However, just because this is a “juicy” story doesn’t mean that it should take precedent over more important issues like oh I don’t know that whole war situation overseas! I say that OJ is old news and let’s move on! I for one have had my fill of “the juice!”

Massive Spider Web

Lake Tawakoni State Park in North Texas is now home to a enormous 200 yard spider web. Entomologist are debating whether or not the giant web was constructed by social cobweb spiders or if the web is a massive connection of independent spider webs that stem off from one another. The web also gives North Texas a little bit of national recognition because this sort of event doesn't really happen that often. The park has become a place of natural wonder for some, but for others it has become a place of horror. I would personally love to see the spider web because I think it would be a once in a life time opportunity to see something like it in Texas.