Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Cold Beat: Like many of us, Howard Kurtz is fed up with the continuing coverage of the runaway bride. Even when there was a suspected criminal element, the coverage of a woman's possible abduction was absurd. Now that we know that it was just a case of cold feet, we should let the family sort out their problems and leave them alone.

Yet the coverage persists. Is this the media's fault? Partly, but it's also the public's fault. They want to watch this soap opera, and demand begets supply. Cable channels and newspapers wouldn't be covering this trash if there weren't millions of people shelling out money for this story. The news media, however, could do the honorable thing and stick to real news and let tabloids follow this one. But don't hold your breath.

It's funny. The decrease in paper circulation and news viewership is forcing news outlets to cover this non-news for ratings. But putting all this crap on air is hurting their credibility, which hurts their numbers in the long run. Let's see how long it takes for them to figure this out.