Media Needs to Move Beyond Anna Nicole Smith

For weeks, headlines have screamed the very latest nuance of the Anna Nicole Smith story.

"Another Chapter Closes Friday In Anna Nicole Smith Saga"

"Anna Nicole Smith To Be Buried ..."

"Anna Nicole Smith Pink Funeral -- A 'Larger Than Life' Funeral..."

Even Hollywood gets attention with actors taking stands. "Travolta: Scientology Could Have Saved Anna Nicole Smith."

Media coverage of Anna Nicole Smith will probably continue until the reporters have extracted the very last drop of story. At that time, everyone will be sick of the story and the coverage and finally Anna Nicole Smith's name will fade into the murky world of non-entities, the ones who no longer dredge up good news coverage. But Anna Nicole Smith was more than a media opportunity.

Anna Nicole Smith was an unfortunate little girl who grew up into a miserable, exhibitionist woman seeking and receiving attention in all the wrong places. She became everything we pray our daughters do not become. She gained notoriety, but not for something noteworthy, creative, of substance or of lasting value, but for doing and saying outlandish things. Anna Nicole Smith was little more than a media opportunity exploring her latest peccadilloes and, all-too-often, an ongoing joke. She gained wealth, but never truly enjoyed it, gaining instead leaches who sought to use her and live off her wealth and need for acceptance.

Exploited in life, Anna Nicole Smith continues to be exploited in death by family, so-called friends and the media.

America has serious issues that need coverage from the war in Iraq to anti-family, anti-business, anti-democratic bills being shepherded through congress by those who really don't seek media spotlight on what is going on. Yet, instead of doing their job of informing the citizenry, much of the media from print and radio to TV and the internet continues to exploit Anna Nicole Smith's sad life with thousands of inches of copy and a huge chunk of air time.

There once was a difference between serious and sensational journalism, but those days are long gone. The rush to exploit Anna Nicole Smith shows just how far the media has strayed from it's foundation of reasoned, informed coverage and highlights why so many have turned to alternate sources for their news.

In another time and place, Anna Nicole Smith would have been pitied, but her life would not have elicited the coverage this unfortunate woman has received before and after death. The Anna Nicole Smith story is of a sad, lonely, attention-starved woman, who achieved little of value, who, for the most part, wasted her life and died tragically before discovering her intrinsic value and worth.

Time journalists return to covering stories of true import. Time to move on and let Anna Nicole Smith rest in a peace she never knew during her life.