The Leader

A rumor about Britney Spears is NOT news.

On Jan. 17, 2007 your top news headlines included something about a big storm leaving 300,000 people without power, an article about a bomb in Baghdad killing 17, and the headline: “Scoop: Is Spears pregnant again?”

Why should anyone give a damn?!! That crap doesn’t belong in the entertainment news let alone the main news.  I know you only put that garbage up on your main links because so many idiots are interested, but, at some point, news organizations such as yourself have to take a stand and not supply that pointless crap to the throngs of thimble brained losers that want it.

Even on a slow news day, drivel about a celebrity should not have made it into the headlines.  Here are just a couple of headlines MSNBC did not post because they were too busy making sure everyone knew that Britney MIGHT be pregnant again: The Justice Department decided to give an independent body authority to monitor the government's controversial domestic spying program; and the U.S. defense secretary, Robert Gates, said on this day he was “strongly inclined” to send more troops to Afghanistan.

The media already takes criticism for agenda setting, so what does it mean when gossip about the potentiality of a newly fertilized egg floating around in Britney’s marketable belly gets prioritized ahead of almost everything else? Usually, agenda setting refers to how news coverage causes the public to perceive the most covered issues as the most important; it has an especially significant effect during elections.

Maybe someone should ask Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain, Rudolph Giuliani etc. whether they think Britney is pregnant or not—apparently it’s pretty important to the public.

Maybe, instead of asking Hillary what she’s going to demand be censored next, we should ask her for comments regarding Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s recent move
to New Orleans.

Maybe, instead of asking Obama about his controversial stand on gun control, we should ask him if he thinks Avril Lavigne looks cuter with brown hair or blonde.

Maybe, instead of asking Senator McCain about his reasons for wanting more troops in Iraq, we should ask him about the break-up of Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz.

Who knows, their answers to one of these questions might get them elected. I’m sure if Obama said Avril looks like a skank with blonde hair, it would be your top news headline.

Annoyed he had to look up all that gossip stuff for this column,

Max Neibaur

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