Journalistic Necrophilia: Dead People Still Getting Media Attention

Well, now that the Virginia Tech shootings are over and Stephen Hawking has relieved himself of gravity's repressive pull, it would be nice if the twenty-four hour news channels would get around to covering some relevant issues. Of course, everyone knows that will never happen. It doesn't take Nostradamus to predict the future of the media. Next week, a celebrity will find an unexpected love partner, get married, convert to Scientology, get divorced, kill his wife, escape imprisonment by shacking up with a Saudi prince, announce that he will be participating in a commercial space flight, or all of the above. News networks, because of their corporate sponsorships, are bound by the laws of money-grubbing; and therefore, are obligated to put out mind-numbing crap for the impressionable audience to watch.

When 'news' networks like CNN, MSNBC, and more guiltily so, Fox, take in a deep breath to blow another celebrity story out of proportion, they negate any possibilities of revealing society's true problems; which, at its heart, is what the press was built for. Corrupt governments of the past (and present) oppressed and jailed journalists for a good reason, as writers are really forward and intense people who aren't afraid to be mean to overbearing and, more than likely, overweight politicians; who neglect the issues of the poor to further enhance the wealth of the rich. Who's to stop these thieves if they keep going on as they do, unnoticed and unsurveyed?

Now, since the mainstream media isn't exactly chock-full of reporters who are willing to crucify themselves in the name of the First Amendment, governments have no reason to jail anyone. There are fewer journalists being executed, sure, but fewer war criminals being executed as well. In fact, the latter of the two is the greatest beneficiary of journalism's fallbacks. The Bush Administration got an all-expenses-paid ride on Iraq. When cable news sources should've been grilling Bush and his cronies on account of his false WMD claims, they were instead, informing Americans of what hair dye brand Scott Peterson used after killing his wife. Scott Peterson's exposure to the public was about as well-deserved as a crook on America's Stupidest Criminals...for crying out loud, hasn't he ever heard of a divorce?

Celebrity worship is pointless and, at its worst, sick, especially when the overly publicized superstar is dead and still attracting an audience. Let's get one thing straight: Anna Nicole Smith has nothing on Marilyn Monroe. Was that comparison supposed to be a joke, or is it based solely on the fact that they both possessed biggie-sized beauty marks above their lips? If a reporter is going to compare a drug-addicted stripper to an iconic comedy actress, there better be a little more to back it up, other than just "Holy crap, they both have MOLES!" Again, there's another case of the media's neglectfulness...and if that doesn't provide enough case-having satisfaction, James Brown's corpse impregnated Anna Nicole Smith. Sorry, that's a bit of a tall one, as James Brown died just a few months before, thus providing the fetus no time to fully gestate. Alas, the hunt for Smith's Baby's Daddy continues onward...

If there's any hope for the mainstream press, then network producers have already begun to see the silver light of what some people call 'the real news'. This is unlikely to ever happen, but it's an amusing thought at least. However, If you're one of those people that thinks that the earth was created in six days, or that it's only been around for 6000 years, or if you think that two of every species on the planet rode in the same homemade boat, or if you think that the Iraq War was a success, then the return of guerrilla news probably isn't much of a stretch.