uExpress.com: Ted Rall by Ted Rall -- (08/04/1999) THE TRITE LEADING THE BORED

Previous Date | Most Recent Ted Rall | Next Date

THE TRITE LEADING THE BORED

08/04/1999

Notes from a Journalistic Victim

LOS ANGELES -- "Renewed fighting threatens peace," reads my favorite recurring New York Times headline. I'd argue that the presence of warfare by definition precludes the existence of peace, but that inane assertion of the obvious has nothing on this week's headlines. One need look no further for a picture-perfect explanation for declining newspaper circulation.

Neither television nor the Internet nor even the continuing post-Darwinian de-evolution of the American intellect are to blame. These days, it seems, the news is something you knew all along.

"Kosovars Attacking Serbs," screamed an Associated Press headline on newspapers across the country. "Ethnic Albanians appear intent on expelling Serbs and Gypsies in a campaign of intimidation and murder that seriously jeopardizes the West's goal of a peaceful, multi-ethnic Kosovo, two human rights groups said today."

Like, duh. Did anyone really think that there wouldn't be some serious payback after NATO troops replaced Yugoslavian government forces with those of the Kosovo Liberation Army? And what's with this "appear intent" crap? I've never been to the Balkans, I don't want to go to the Balkans, but trust me, ethnic Albanians are intent as hell on kicking the crap out of the people who burned down their homes, shot their friends to death and burned their identity papers at the border. Who wouldn't?

On the very same day, the wire service fed its client newspapers a surefire winner for a slow news day: the anniversary story. If it happened one, 10, 25 or 50 years before tomorrow, it's good for an article -- at least in the minds of the editorial morons who think Americans will always buy their local paper as long as it's full of words.

story continues below

"The United States is boosting security precautions at home and abroad ahead of the first anniversary Saturday of the twin U.S. embassy bombings in Africa that killed more than 220 people," a story redundantly headlined "U.S. Steps Up Security Before Bomb Anniversary" reads. First of all, the story is probably disinformation. How seriously can you take security precautions that are intentionally publicized? The odds are, the government is too cheap to actually beef up security and is instead simply relying on this story to keep Osama bin Laden at his Afghan summer house. But if it is true, it's another nonstory about an eventuality any idiot could have predicted and that even fewer people care about.

In yet another breathtakingly boring attempt at attracting readers to their mind-numbing product, many papers ran feature pieces on the Shroud of Turin. "The Shroud of Turin is much older than some scientists believe, according to researchers who used pollen and plant images to conclude it dates from Jerusalem before the eighth century," says the wire story. "The study gives a boost to those who believe the shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus and contradicts a 1988 examination by scientists who said the shroud was made between 1260 and 1390." Again, more BS: In no way, shape or form does dating the Shroud to the seventh century make it more authentic than calling it 13th century. One estimate is older than the other, but neither is old enough. The bottom line? There's still no proof that the thing is what it is purported to be.

These days, slow news is no news.

Finally, leading the "lifestyle" section (that's the one with Abby and Ann) was a major double-duh item on codger copulation: "Most aging Baby Boomer women approve of sex outside marriage, but they may have trouble in the future finding partners among boomer men, a new U.S. survey reported Tuesday." Of course boomers like extramarital sex -- why would they like it any less in middle age than they did in their 20s? "Aging Gen Xers like tattoos and loud music," some headline 15 years in our future will read if newspapers are still around. And yeah, the dating game is a bitch for single older Baby Boomer women, just as it was for single older Silent Generation women before them.

As the bearers of badly written news continue to wallow in platitudinous pseudo-information, their customers are drifting slowly, inevitably away. When the average age of your readers increases nearly as quickly as the passage of time, it's only a matter of time before your average reader is dead.

The good thing is, they'll be so bored by then that they'll hardly even mind.

(Ted Rall, a cartoonist and columnist for Universal Press Syndicate, is author of "Revenge of the Latchkey Kids.")