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Friday, April 13, 2007
Linda Chavez :: Townhall.com Columnist
A Nation of Nincompoops
by Linda Chavez
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I am sick to death of Don Imus, and I'm tired of hearing his disgusting rant against the Rutgers women's basketball team. I don't care who fathered the daughter of trampy Anna Nicole Smith, nor was I interested in what killed the blowsy blonde or where she would be buried.

I don't need to know that the nutty astronaut who drove cross-country to confront her lover's other girlfriend wore diapers to cut down on her pit stops. I can't understand why the sight of police vehicles chasing speeding cars down interstates holds hypnotic power over millions of television viewers. Nor do I wait breathlessly for word on the latest missing coed who disappeared while on spring break or the hapless wife whose cheating husband dumped her body in San Francisco Bay.

Don't get me wrong. For those people who want to know who's sleeping -- or feuding -- with whom in Hollywood, or have an endless appetite for the macabre or just plain weird, there are plenty of resources available to get their fix, from the relatively respectable People magazine to the myriad pulp tabloids at the checkout stand, not to mention shows like "Access Hollywood" or cable channels like E! and Fox Reality.

But why must network news shows and serious newspapers, not to mention cable news stations, cover these insignificant stories ad nauseam? Blame it on the 24-hour "news" cycle. Admit it: There just isn't enough real news to fill 24 hours of programming a day. On some days, there's not even two or three hours' worth.

It used to be that television news followed the lead of the big, prestigious print media. If a story appeared on the front page of The New York Times or Washington Post, it led the nightly network newscast. But cable news changed that. A breaking story could be instantly covered and was old news by the time the paper came out the next morning. So, newspapers increasingly followed television's lead on some stories.

In the past, however, the print media could usually be counted on to provide more depth than a two-minute TV story. Even more importantly, newspapers could discriminate between legitimate news and fluff, relegating the latter to the style and entertainment pages in the back of the paper.

No more. Now, in the rush to attract readers, the silliest stories appear alongside the latest news from the Iraq war or the reversal of a longstanding Supreme Court precedent.

And the vicious cycle got worse as cable news increasingly turned to sensational stories with little substance in the search for more and more viewers. A fire in a warehouse in Duluth? Send in the cameras so millions can watch it burn. A raunchy pop singer forgets her underwear when she goes partying? Flash the pictures every 20 minutes -- making sure her private parts are blurred just enough to satisfy the Federal Communications Commission while still titillating viewers. Continued...
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About The Author

Linda Chavez is chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity and author of Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics .

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(44 comments so Far)
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Reply # 1
Date: Apr 15, 2007 - 10:36 PM EST
I won't judge you, matlock,
But I will give you some good advice -- advice which I would not give to a nincompoop or an idiot (because I would know they wouldn't take it anyway).

Buy yourself a copy of Dr. Elizabeth Kantor's "The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature." Sit down with it and have a good read. As you're reading, you may find that this fiction you're so quick to dismiss actually has a lot to offer you, and your children and your grandchildren as well.

You might realize that the tiny box labeled "contemporary" is more stifling than you'd thought, and you'd like to start thinking outside it. You might discover that this brief span between the time we're born and the time we die is really only .0000000000000000000005% of Life and the World, and that things that happened fifty, a hundred, or even a thousand years ago are actually worth knowing about.

You might become curious about places you can't visit in "real life" -- places like ancient Greece, sixteenth-century Venice and Cyprus nineteenth-century England, Narnia and Middle Earth. You might start to wonder what it's like to see these places through the eyes of someone else, and, for a little while, to BECOME someone else, and walk in their shoes. You might even find that when you get back to "real life," you've picked up greater understanding along the way, and that even "real life" has more to offer than you thought it did.

Best of all, you'll decide to introduce your children to Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Anne of Green Gables, the March sisters, Mowgli, Alice in Wonderland, and the Pevensie children -- just so they won't try to squeeze themselves into that tiny box labeled "contemporary," and they'll see Life as much bigger and wider.

It would have done "poor Anna Nicole" a world of good if she, too, could have read this book and a few of the other books it points its readers toward. She might have developed the mental and imaginative resources to withstand the temptation of artificial highs. She might have gained the understanding and the dignity to live a fuller and happier and more productive (if more anonymous) life. Hopefully her daughter will be luckier, and will grow up in a household where imagination and accomplishment are valued, and where she's encouraged to crack a book once in a while.
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Reply # 2
Date: Apr 15, 2007 - 1:52 PM EST
choices...good or bad
Yes, we all make choices. What's the difference if you read a fictional novel about someone, talented or otherwise, making bad choices in his/her life or read/hear about a fellow contemporary making bad choices? As for me, I prefer real human beings, not fictional characters. Read all you want, it's your choice and mine, but don't judge others.
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