News Worth Retching

I'm really sick of mainstream media (MSM). It continually amazes me that with all of the important events occurring in our lives, MSM resorts to trivial, no brainer items. A long time ago, I read that the average IQ is 100. I believe the MSM is catering to the lower half of that mark.

CNN's Headline News is only one half hour long. Each ensuing half hour is a repeat of the previous, including the same copywriting. Of course, a periodic “new in the next half hour” story replaces another that has been repeated a gazillion times and is now time to be retired (only to be resurrected in the “weekend wrap-up”).

I bring this up because I happened to see on Headline News this morning about a “Minute Market” type store clerk who fended off a shotgun wielding robber by repeatedly refusing his demands and attacking him, thus “saving the day,” and the obligatory follow up interview with the feisty clerk.

Off the top of my head I can think of the Iraqi War, the Afghan War, the Economy, the Gas Crisis, Russia v. Georgia, the candidates’ stands on the issues (not fluff pieces) in the upcoming Election, and Guantanamo Bay as slightly more important items than "woman beats up robber."

Headline News has maybe 22 noncommercial minutes to air the headlines minus the weather and sports. Yet, this is THE news story to take up some of this short, valuable time that could be used to inform the public of important issues confronting them?

What’s even sadder is if the clerk had been shot and killed for her defiance it would never have made Headline News, seeing as how local store clerks having been murdered during a robbery is not newsworthy on a national level.

Plus, doesn’t this somehow promote the concept that defiance should be used in the face of armed robbers? Has anyone ever run a statistic on the percentage of defiance that has been successful as opposed to the result of being injured or killed? Can’t you just see some poor zhlub watching this pathetic display on H.N. and thinking he or she is going to thwart the bad guy if a robbery ever happens in their store (“Hey, I’ll be on Headline News!”)? Of course, if he or she is killed because of the defiance, we’ll never hear it on Headlines News. Pitiful.