One year ago the news media fixated on a single story for several weeks.  It was so terribly important that it superceded everything else that was going on in the world.  It was as if nothing else mattered – this story was so critical to the life and welfare of every American that there was no room for any other news.   Even President Obama had to take time from his schedule to express his concern and thoughts about the topic.

Don’t remember?  Does the name Trayvon Martin ring a bell?

What have you heard about him lately?  Do you know how the case turned out?  Has anything changed in our lives because of the Florida incident in which Martin, a neighborhood watch volunteer, followed a young man he thought was suspicious, and ended up shooting him in a scuffle?

My point is this:  our news industry has devolved to the point where they now pick a salacious and often irrelevant or marginal news story and  elevate it to crisis pitch, while ignoring everything else that happens worldwide.   If the Trayvon Martin case was so earth-shakingly important, why have you not heard anything about it for a year?

Whatever happened to the Occupy Wall Street crowd?  Our media elites climbed all over each other to recount every syllable uttered by a tiny group of incoherent losers, affording them status on par with world leaders and history-makers.  Where are they now?  What happened?  Is it possible that MAYBE THEY WEREN’T NEWSWORTHY IN THE FIRST PLACE?

The media was quick to report that the Tea Party is dead.  It isn’t.  But the Occupy Movement sure as hell is.  Who is reporting on that?

Remember all the hoo-hah about ObamaCare?  We would all die if it was implemented.   Or we would all die if it was NOT implemented.  Either way, we were all going to die.  Three years later, not much has happened.

Michael Jackson.  Lady Diana.  Stories about pop culture icons deserve a headline, not an entire page of the calendar.

It’s a sad fact that the news business has become so much more business than news.  Rather than reporting actual news and letting the informed public determine what is important to them, the media now chooses the story it feels has the most commercial potential and milks it to the bloody end.

So when you see today’s front-page bold-type stop-the-presses big story, don’t get your underwear in a knot.  There’s a good chance it will be completely forgotten a year from now.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Who wants yesterday’s papers?
Who wants yesterday’s girl?
Who wants yesterday’s papers?
Nobody in the world!

Yesterday’s Papers – the Rolling Stones