Breaking News Reality Check

I woke with a start at 3:00 AM as the anxious broadcaster was barely able to contain the excitement in her voice proclaiming there was "breaking news". There was a cut to a commercial break and during the 90 seconds of drivel about mattress sales, the latest revolutionary, natural health product, and the token public service announcement, I wondered what the urgent "breaking news" could be.

Although the Resident-In-Chief only has a few more lame duck months in his pitiful presidency, he would be stupid enough to start a war with Iran. Perhaps there was a 50 car pile up on the 5 Freeway or civil war in an unstable country. My mind raced until the woman's voice came back on air with the "breaking news".

Breaking News: Police have just been to Brittney Spears' house, and although there are unconfirmed reports of a suicide attempt, nothing has been substantiated. However they are taking her to a hospital in an ambulance.

You've got to be fucking kidding me!

There are so many levels of wrong here I don't know where the hell to begin. Maybe I should start with the obvious, which is that a has-been pop tart's mental breakdown is not exactly "breaking news". Breaking news is a political assassination, or an natural disaster, or a major financial crisis that will affect millions of people.

When I went to journalism school I learned about the history of the profession, and felt proud to join it. I studied great journalists like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. My favorite female journalist was Nellie Bly. Many know her as the lady who went around the world in 80 days, but what they don't know is that she was hired as a reporter (when women weren't hired) by doing one of the most shocking undercover investigations of the late 1800s. She suspected that female immigrants were being carted off to mental institutions, not because they were insane, but because had no knowledge of their new American culture. To prove this, she had herself committed to one of the most notorious women's asylums in the country.

Poor Nellie would be vomiting and pulling her hair out if she could see what has become of the profession she fought so hard to be a part of. Journalism was set up to keep an eye on the government and big business, as the fourth institution in this country. Without freedom of the press, you can't have a democracy, but much like the failed dream of a true American democracy, the press has fallen by the wayside, sold off to big corporations and is now busy creating sensationalist info-tainment instead of covering real news.

Television networks used to be willing to lose money on the news broadcasts, because they weren't about making money or getting high ratings, the news was the news. It was a vehicle to keep the country informed, and to let politicians and big business know they were being watched. Now, the caliber of your average news broadcast makes the National Enquirer seem dignified.

Aside from the complete collapse of media integrity, I find it very disturbing that they are fixated on Brittney hoping for an Anna Nicole ending. They want to be there for every ounce of this woman's self-destruction, and if they're lucky, maybe they can be standing over her while she overdoses!

There used to be an award for journalistic integrity that was presented once a year at a large journalism conference. One year it was won by a photographer who happened to be standing in front of the nightclub where, late actor, River Phoenix was having his last party. River came out of the club and overdosed on the sidewalk. The photographer snapped photos until he realized that the actor had died in front of him, then he destroyed the film in his camera, because he felt that no one should see a brilliant, young actor die so tragically. I don't know what ever happened to that photographer, but I would lay money down that he isn't one of the vultures hovering around Brittney hoping to create "breaking news".