Chronicles of a Slow News Day: May 28th, 2007

After taking Journalism at university, I can say I learned (among others) these two facts about the biz; 1) Dead air/space is like liquid death, and 2) There's not always something newsworthy to fill that space. The CNN Newsroom this morning was a prime example of that lesson coming to life in a sort of grim synergy.

Sergent Marries Girlfriend Over Phone

This is one of those stories where women watching go "aww!" This is also one of those stories that makes me wince. Here are two people who are so sickeningly in love that they lose all patience and sense. But the fact that they got married over the phone is hardly what bothers me. The fact that I know does. The fact that I turned to CNN and this is what they told me. Not only did they tell me this, they interviewed the two of them; the Sergent via satellite and the wife, appropriately enough, by phone. And you could tell that Melissa Long was just straining to make this interesting:

LONG: So tell me, Sergeant, you had been dating a of couple months. You were deployed to Iraq and you just couldn't stand the thought of not being together. How did you decide to get married over the phone?

K. CREEL: We had actually been talking about getting married. We had already been planning a wedding and everything for whenever I got back. And the more we talked about it, the more anxious we both got. And we figured the only way to do it quickly would be to see if we could get help from the state of Texas. And they were great.

LONG: OK. So, Tara, take me through the steps of the vows. Did you have an opportunity to get dressed up? Did you have rings? What type of vows did you have?

TARA CREEL: We actually did it over my lunch break from work. And we got a marriage license and we had someone stand in for him, a good family friend. And we went to the courthouse and had a judge marry us. And then I went back to work.

LONG: OK. Did you have a nice lunch at any point to celebrate this wonderful occasion?

"Did you have a nice lunch?" What is this shit? I expect this kind of hard-hitting investigative journalism from Live at 5, not from CNN. To hell with this lovey dovey hippy emasculated crap.

Ketchup Portraits




Remember how this was all over Youtube for about a day and a half a few months back? Well, now it's all over the news. How awesome! Something most of us have already seen a month ago and already got bored with, again! Only this time there's a crawl underneath it and we don't actually get to see the video for more than a second!

CNN is totally on to something. All the other media outlets are already catching up. Next week there will be an exposé on Star Wars Kid on MSNBC, and the New Yorker is doing a photojournalistic essay on GOATSE. I personally can't wait for the special TV movie "Canon Rock: The JerryC Story" to air on ABC!

There are just some things better left to the Internet, CNN and you other TV News Stations. Just because you're a slowly dying medium for news doesn't mean you can't die with some dignity.

Commando Mom Makes Kid's Birthday at Taxpayer's Expense

OCTAVIA MITCHELL, REPORTER, WCBD TV: Taylor Deal thought she was celebrating her 10th birthday without her mom. She also thought she was filming a greeting for her mom who was deployed in Iraq.

Well, she thought wrong, didn't she? First of all, what a lame lead-in, Octavia. "She thought this would happen" is just a roundabout way of saying "this other thing happened." We were taught in Journalism school to avoid campy cliches like that. And yet you're fucking CNN.

Secondly, the mother here (who did make it to the party, for all you waiting with baited breath), according to the stuff written under her in that header or whatever you call it, made a point to get home early. For her daughter's 10th Birthday. So that the little girl wouldn't feel bad. Right. This is a good lesson to teach a kid. "Whenever you want something, no matter how trivial, the world works to give you your way, including but not exclusive to the U.S. Military." It's a birthday. Get over yourself. You know what I did on my 20th birthday this year? I spent most of it alone, and then I had to go to see my mom in Oklahoma!, the hammiest of the Rodgers and Hammerstein plays. And she didn't have a single line in it. So I really went there for nothing. And I didn't even get a cake.

Though maybe this is the answer to getting the troops out of Iraq; they all claim they have a kid's birthday they cannot miss. Then maybe it'd be an interesting story. But it really, really isn't.

Memorial Day Grilling!

In this segment, I learned:

- May is "National BBQ Month"
- There were 17,000,000 grills shipped in the U.S. last year
- 66% of grilling is done by men
- BBQ experts agree, charcoal is the way to go
- I want to kill myself

Seriously, I hate myself for knowing these facts. Why did you fill space with this crap, CNN? This would barely be interesting on a Wikipedia page on Barbecue statistics. Hell, this probably isn't even worthy of the attention of the Census. Who but the BBQ industry cares about these numbers? Oh, and the BBQ expert (read: expert = lobbyist) even gave barbecue etiquette! Here's a gem or two:

LISOVICZ: Here's some etiquette for you. If you're invited to a cookout this Memorial Day, bring the potato salad or steak sauce, but don't touch the grill. The primary griller in the majority of households considers him or himself to be an average or above average cook, and you wouldn't want to step on that person's toes or ego.

You know why unwritten rules are unwritten? They're stupid. As is this whole BBQ nonsense. Get off of CNN and stay away from the Census.

Three Little Pigs

LONG: This is a story we've been wait for all morning. This is pretty ridiculous. It's an Oregon home, trashed because of them -- the culprits -- the piggies. Three of them, three little piggies. They're not little. Where's the owner? That's what police want to know. They say this home was in foreclosure and left to the pigs. Details from Scott Burton of our affiliate KGW.

The police want to know? I could see maybe why the police might have a healthy curiosity as to why this Shane Lovett guy would destroy his house and leave pigs in it. It's odd. But this story makes him sort of sound like he's on the FBI's most wanted list:

BURTON: Police still can't prove that Shane Lovett is behind all this but the three-foot tall letters on the side of his former home have given them a reason to look in his direction.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe he signed it to let them know it was him.

BURTON: We tried to find Lovett at his new rental home this afternoon to ask him about it, but all we found this time was his last name. No sign of the 33-year-old. At last check police haven't caught up with him either. But according to Pat Bradshaw, he's been around.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yesterday afternoon, I saw him drive by.

Oh, Unidentified Male, we love your insightful musings. But why do the police want him? He broke his own house. Unless it's a rental house, which wasn't made very clear. But you'd think there'd be more pressing matters for the police to deal with. Like jaywalking.

And they talk about those "three little piggies" like they're so cute and it was fun for them. Yeah, how cute. Being locked in some ransacked shack without food or water for 72 hours before anyone noticed them dehydrated and covered in their own feces and surrounding debris. Fairy Tale fodder, that is.

Memorial Day Wreath Laying

To be fair, this was one of the more newsworthy things all day. Which is really sad. This happens every year. And yet these people have to act like it's a breaking news story. I'm sorry, but it's about as newsworthy as Christmas, Halloween and the Tuesday Surprise at your school's cafeteria. The whole time I literally was hoping someone would attempt to assassinate the president. I was like, "There are seven guys with guns right there! Please let one of them snap! They're wasting their ammo firing into the air!"

And yes, I'm aware that they were probably blanks. But can't a man dream?

That was all I could take. So this concludes our broadcast-ridiculing day.

- Silent G