Is This Really News?

These days I tend to dread watching the news but it's not for the reasons you might think. These days it seems that we tend to get hung up on news items that have no business being news items. Since the State Dinner held for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a few weeks ago now not much news has been made about what was discussed between the President and Singh. Rather the media appears to be more focused on Tareq and Michaele Salahi who 'crashed' the party and have raised a stink that has long after the party ended. After the initial 'who is to blame' finally died down a bit now comes news that the couple will be subpoenaed to testify before Congress as to why they attended the party when they were clearly not invited. What I'm beginning to wonder is whether this is being blown up to even larger proportions simply because this pair was making headlines and were set to appear on a reality show 'The Real Housewives of DC'?

I don't understand why they are the issue. Shouldn't the issue be how they managed to penetrate security in the first place? The Secret Service is tasked with keeping the President and First Family safe so then why are we focusing our news on whether or not Salahi's phone did or did not die before receiving the call that informed him that he and his wife were in fact not invited to the party. What does it matter? This is something that the investigative committee needs to find out; I don't need to know about it, at least not every single day.

For example today there was a major article in the Washington Post about how Michaele Salahi is listed as being part of the Washington Redskins Cheerleader alumni even though she never cheered at a single game. She claims she did even though she can't say with whom, she can't furnish any proof and in reading interviews with other cheerleaders it was clear that she couldn't cheer either. If nothing else at least we know she (and her husband apparently) are very good at manipulating their way into fancy situations. When I checked out the headlines this morning I was surprised to see that before many other important (in fact even more important) stories was the headline about the Salahis and Tiger Woods.

Speaking of Tiger Woods; again I ask the question, why should I care? I understand that Woods is a public figure so his case will obviously garner more attention than the average person's may have but still, it's his personal problem between he and his wife. I don't need to listen to recordings of his cell phone calls or see copies of mails he sent to various women. There are more important things to discuss and talk about. And it's not just the entertainment or sports media focusing on the story either; the amount of time that Fox News (the self-proclaimed bastion of 'fair and balanced' news) has covered these two stories to such a degree that it reminds me of the time that Anna Nicole Smith passed away from a drug overdose. I remember that they spent 45 minutes (45!!) covering her death. I know it was 45 minutes because I was at the gym that evening and that's how long I was on the treadmill.

So many times these days we start seeing headlines that have no business being there. Certainly these are noteworthy news bits but they are noteworthy and not newsworthy (in my opinion). I don't think it's worth looking into to the degree that many media outlets are. Granted there aren't very many 'feel good' stories out there and the disappointing news about Tiger Woods's "indiscretions" are going to tarnish the good-boy image he had garnered over the years, it still doesn't justify the time that is spent on this case. Rather than worrying about world events we seem to be focused on entertainment news. Definitely a step that should make us all a little worried.