Anna Nicole Smith Died. So Did Three American Troops.

[Dracos]

I can't stand it anymore. For the last two days, on every cable news network, it has been non stop coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Look, I am sorry she is dead. And my heart goes out to her family. Really it does. But this is not a major news story.

Not even close.

As a veteran of this war in Iraq, I beg all Americans to please keep things in perspective while the networks fill you with images of a buxom blond celebrity who was only famous for being famous.

CNN, Fox and MSNBC are all guilty of it. MSNBC (which was really getting better for a while) has been the worst. Yesterday afternoon, while a war raged in Iraq, Hammas met with Fatah in Mecca, and a House investigation into botched Iraq reconstruction efforts continued on Capitol Hill, MSNBC gave us over three straight hours of almost entirely uninterrupted coverage of the death of the spokesperson for TRIMSPA. The coverage of Smith's death has rivaled that of former President Ford's.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-rieckhoff/anna-nicole-smith-died-_b_40827.html

[demrabble]

1. And So Did Some Kids and Their Mom

In Philadelphia.

But they were not rich and famous.

So no one cares about them.

[Deja Q]

6. Don't say the truth like that!

You will be spit on...

(Apparently, Ms Smith is more popular than Joe Manicraw, trying to provide for his family and died of a stroke at age 37...)

Note, Joe isn't a real guy but there are many who are just like him, are real, and no doubt have had life altering or ending circumstances... When I was in hospital 2 years ago, the bloke in the adjacent bed was about 39 and had a stroke. That's damn tragic. :(

[demrabble]

9. Don't Forget The Man In Hollywood

Don't forget the quadrapalegic man who was dumped by a hosptial in Los Angeles.

The hospital dumped him in the "skd row" area of LA. He was wearing only a dirty hospital gown, and he had a broken clostomoy bag with him.

[Lex]

2. Hello? Corporate Media helped rah-rah this country into this War

so you think they are going to cover the tragic results appropriately?

:shrug:

[Deja Q]

7. Of course not. Unless, of course, the dead soldier

has a "sensational history" to be exploited. Then he'll be on for days, if not weeks.

[ixion]

3. it's pathetic, really

Of course, my sympathies go out to her family. However, it is not an event that denotes day-after-day of uniterrupted coverage.

[sniffa]

4. WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH 1000S DEAD IN IRAQ!!?

[fed-up]

5. Last week-my brother, last mo my BF's bro-lack of affordable healthcare nt

[Cobalt Violet]

8. Cable Sucks.

And that's not news either. Pull the plug. There is life after cable. Stop paying them.

[undeterred]

10. I am sad that ANS died because it was an untimely death.

But I did not watch all the news shows and I do not think her death is "important". The deaths of our troops may not be important as individuals, but they matter, and I try to do something every week or two to protest, remind an elected official, or just remind myself of the tragedy that is ongoing. Today I looked at the wedding pictures posted here of the young man who was disfigured in combat and I will not forget it soon.

We can't depend on the media to tell us what is important. Their values are skewed. The celebrity of a playmate is of brief passing interest, but so is a car accident. I do not wish to make things worse. The tragedy of this unnecessary war is enormous.

[Benhurst]

11. And over 700,000 Iraqi citizens, men, women and children have

been murdered in Bush's illegal and immoral invasion and occupation. How much coverage has that received since the go-team-go! days of Blitzkrieg, I mean Shock and Awe.

[MonkeyFunk]

12. And...

if ANS hadn't died, do you think CNN or MSNBC had planned to do in-depth stories on those three deaths?

[Joe Chi Minh]

15. You nailed it there. But you can understand a veteran's bitterness.

spilling over a little. It seems though that the media killed two birds with one stone.

They both filled the airwaves with "infotainment" instead of news, and managed to excite hatred against a poorer person who quickly became rich. If she'd already been rich, it wouldn't have mattered. Exciting envy in their subscribers is one of the first rules of the press, it seems. Divide, DISTRACT and rule.

[Bluebear]

16. Exactly. nt

[KharmaTrain]

13. Dare I Say It's Not As Bad As I Thought

or maybe I've become adept at tuning out things of no substance. One expects the Larry Kings and Rita Cosbys and tabloid shows to milk this sad life and story for all it's worth. Remember, February is sweeps month...they're seeing big dollarz in exploiting this fiasco to the hilt.

Seems I've seen little about this crap over the last 24 to 48 hours. Seems like CNN's still freaking out about the snow in upstate NY.

As someone stated last week when others were complaining about the glut of Anna Nicole threads and "ignoring" the carnage in Iraq. Some of us are fully capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. We can and have been keeping track of the escalating madness and can't be distracted by some corporate media freak show.

Also, there's only limited material one can show about the war. CNN tries to do an hour a week in recapping what's going on and there's little they have from inside other than their reporter ensconsed inside a well protected hotel who can only rely on second-hand reports from a shrinking pool of reliable stringers. Much of the time they bring on their talking head Generals and Pentagon shills to gloss over or spin what is being reported.

[Democrats_win]

14. News about how Pentagon lied to get us to war was also missed last week.

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorial/130

It was a week of startling revelations that included:

The Pentagon issuing a report admitting that they had a department set up that helped create lies to convince America to go to war with Iraq.

The Libby trial further revealing that Cheney orchestrated a campaign, with the approval of Bush, that included outing a CIA operative who specialized in tracking the illicit sale and possession of WMD’s, the very reason Cheney and Bush claimed that we went to war with Iraq over, but lied about.

hearings unearthed multiple Bush Administration betrayals and deceptions including that the Iranians had offered awhile back to have comprehensive negotiations with the U.S. to help stabilize Iraq and even potentially recognize Israel.
The Bush Administration ignored their offer.

Among the many other Congressional hearing bombshells, we learned that the Bush "Viceroy" for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, allowed the distribution of $12 billion in cash without requiring any record keeping.

The Bush Administration continued putting naval and military resources in place to launch a nuclear airstrike on Iran.

But these and so many other bombshells – which strung together in just one week would merit the exploration of high crimes and misdemeanors (as in the impeachment of Bush and Cheney) – got buried in the sudden death of the only bombshell that really matters to television news ratings: the mysterious death of a bodacious blonde female celebrity.

Oh, and let’s not forget the astronaut who wore diapers as she drove cross the south to presumably do harm to a romantic rival. (Given that this is America, the astronaut charged with the crime will probably end up as a spokesperson for "Depends.")