Op-Ed: Jacko coverage leaves no time for news
No sound came from the big screen TV dominating the far end of the dining area, but the CNN graphics told the distasteful story that made the over-cooked fish sticks on my plate look appetizing.
File photo
Michael Jackson
I learned if I stayed at the ranch Tuesday, I could watch “continuous” coverage of the Michael Jackson Memorial on CNN.
I’m not sure what was the most disturbing: a global cable news network spending god-knows-how-much money in its continuing coverage of the death of a drug-addled musician whose last hit was toward the end of the last century, or clowns in the newsroom not knowing the difference between “continuous” and “continual”. (Continuous means unbroken. Think a snake’s hisssss.)
Of course, the newsroom illiterati may be correct. They may be foisting upon their viewers an unbroken coverage of the sights, sounds, and sickness of Jacko’s L.A. memorial service. No reason to doubt that. Just take a look at CNN’s Web page (which will up their hit count, so maybe you should just take me at my word.). The Breaking News banner headline right now tells me the service will feature Mariah Carey, Usher, and Stevie Wonder. Be still my heart!
The lead story covers those who won tickets to the event. And the top news story as of this writing is Stuart Smalley going to the U.S. Senate. Hey, I would have used the senator’s real name, but I’m just reporting how CNN headlined it.
So, I got to thinking about what real news CNN chose not to cover in depth today, or Tuesday, for that matter.
Seven U.S.Marines died Monday in Afghanistan as thousands of Devil Dogs continue their massive operation against the Taliban, our former allies against the Soviet Union. Meantime, a terrorist blew up himself and his vehicle outside the gate of NATO’s main base in the region, taking two civilians with him and injuring 14 others.
But on CNN, it’s all Jacko, all the time.
Over in Nigeria, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta took credit for an attack on a Chevron oil pipeline and the seizure of a chemical tanker and its six-member crew over the weekend. Terrorist attacks in the Niger River delta have cut more than 20 percent of Nigeria’s oil exports since 2006. By the way, Nigeria is the fifth top exporter of oil to the United States and is the leading oil producer in Africa.
But on CNN, we can watch Jacko’s fans world wide with Facebook.
Leftist leaders in Central and South America Monday continued their political and military strong arming of Honduras, increasing the likelihood of war in the nation that kicked out its thug president for trying to circumvent the country’s constitution. Monday, Honduran troops blocked an airport runway to keep Manuel Zelaya from landing in a plane provided by Venezuela’s chief cabron Hugo Chavez, who supplied the ballots and ballot boxes for Zelaya’s foiled attempt to hold an illegal referendum on his bid to keep his job beyond the four-year term limit, a la Chavez. Honduran lawmakers and the country’s Supreme Court got their bellies full of Zelaya after he led a violent mob to a military base where they stole and distributed the illegal ballots. When last seen, Zelaya, along with the U.N. General Assembly’s leftist president Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, was heading to El Salvador for some political snogging with that nation’s new communist president Mauricio Funes.
Meanwhile, Argentina’s president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has more trouble on her hands than a failing national economy. Word out of Rio this week is that the swine flu has killed more people in that country than in any other South American nation. Argentina’s N1H1 death rate is three times the world average. And the winter flu season is just starting.
On CNN, special primetime coverage Tuesday will feed the belly of those who starve for continuous Jacko jibberjabber.
Israel’s top spy says Saudi Arabian leaders would ignore Israeli jets flying over the kingdom to take out Iran’s nuclear sites. Vice President Joe Biden says his boss wouldn’t put up a fuss if that happened. And former U.S. United Nations ambassador John Bolton says the Saudi blind-eye is entirely logical, adding Arab leaders would stomp around in public, but would give thumb-ups in private to the removal of Iran’s nuclear threat.
On CNN, we learn scalpers are selling Jacko memorial tickets online.
And, in Gaffney, S.C., lawmen think they have a serial killer in their midst after a teenage gunshot victim died over the weekend, the fifth murder victim in about a week.
While on CNN, we learn picking up Jacko memorial tickets is a breeze.
Mundus vult decipi
