Cable News Networks Need to Get Their Priorities in Order

A few minutes ago my e-mail alerted me to a statement the president had just delivered to the press upon his departure from the White House. The president noted that tomorrow I’m going to Georgia and Alabama. I go down with a heavy heart. I go down knowing full well that I’ll be seeing people whose lives were turned upside down by the tornadoes.” A properly somber tone and message struck by the president of the United States during a time of sorrow after Mother Nature took the lives of several people going about their daily lives yesterday — all to end in tragedy.

When I heard there was breaking news on the cable outlet my television is tuned into, I expected the media to comment on the president’s statement. What planet am I living on? Instead, I was treated to a report by a breathless reporter in the Bahamas who said that he had never seen so many white stretch limousines as those that arrived for Anna Nicole Smith’s funeral. Are you kidding me?

I fear the cable outlets have lost a sense of perspective as to what is really important in the world anymore. I only hope they will bury their coverage of Anna Nicole Smith when she is buried later on today — there are real stories and real tragedies that will resonate with Americans more than breathless coverage of someone who has been dead for several weeks now.

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