Good Morning Lowcountry

INTRUSION

Those of us who watch cable news channels are used to a story being run into the ground 24-7, day after day, even week after week. Don Imus reduced important national and international news to a footnote. So did Anna Nicole Smith.

And while the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech (or Virginia Polytechnical Institute and State University, as I used to have to type it when I worked at a Virginia newspaper) have far, far more news merit and impact than those examples, the spectacle of satellites and microphones and TV anchors and TV reporters chasing after grieving students and parents in the usually bucolic mountain town of Blackburg is just more than I can bear.

And what is with the networks parading parents who have just lost a child in front of the lens to answer questions like how do you feel? and when did you learn the worst? and what was your daughter like? and what will you do now? Have the TV folks no shame? It goes beyond unseemly, tacky and classless and into the realm of invasion of privacy and voyeurism at its worst -- intrusion on the private feelings of people forced into the spotlight by the worst thing that has ever happened to them.

Cable TV news anchors seemed almost apologetic Tuesday when they explained that as awful as the news is from Blacksburg, they must report that there is other news in the world. For example: A number of separate bombs in Baghdad that killed at least 170 people Tuesday. Here's the story in case you missed it amid all the drama and psychobabble about the Virginia Tech shootings on cable TV.

Cable TV news brings a celebuculture, entertainment aspect a truly awful and sad event that is just ... out of place. Their screaming headlines and banners are just violence porn, and they reduce viewers to prying peeping Toms, second-guessers and hangers-on to an unpeakable grief that no one would wish on any loved one, especially a  parent. I'm really sick of it.

Here's another semi-creepy thing that has nothing to do with the topic so far but caught my eye as being totally inappropriate for such a solemn occasion as honoring the dead students: Nikki Giovanni's convocation recitation of a poem/chant/cheer/rally.

PHOTO CREDITS (top to bottom):

AP Photo/The Roanoke Times, Stephanie Klein-Davis
AP Photo/The Roanoke Times, Eric Brady
AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
AP Photo/Steve Helber

What passes for news

After surviving the "American Idol" blitzkrieg on alledged news channels like CNN and MSNBC, I thought the nausea-inducing celebrity non-events were over. So naive of me. CNN runs a crawl in the morning (hey, it might be 24/7) that has nothing but stuff about TV shows, movies, celebrity divorces, celebrity babies. Shouldn't these be called ads? And, besides, we get enough of this kind of information from Us Weekly.  I found a blogger's rant about Baby Brangelina that sums it up.

It's as bad as the nonsstop bloody news on cable... kidnappings, rapes, murders, stranglings. Did we sign up for court TV on all channels? I don't think so.

Solution: Of course, read the newspaper. But also, since this post is about TV, watch the BBC, especially BBC news. Oh sure, BBC has its shortcomings, but it's the only way to find out what's happening in the rest of the world... say, China or Somalia. ABC's World News Now  , watched by insomniacs at 2:30 a.m. is pretty good, too. Just get up in the middle of the night and look at that. Or Tivo it. Bonus: the World News Now Polka and weather forecasts for far-flung, exotic places in the world.