Posted 2:42 PM by Gene

OH oh, Romy's shaking at his superexpensive computer -- the peons are complaining the hacks are overdoing it!

The problem may be demonstrated with an equation:

[(H/I) / D] * C = T

in which H is the horror factor, I is the amount of information available, D is the likelihood of future developments, C (for GUESS WHICH CABLE NEWS NETWORK) is the amount of air time and column inches available (this being close to infinity and getting closer), and T is the tedium factor. Yesterday's obscenity had a very high horror quotient and a very low information quotient, a quotient rendered lower because of so few firsthand accounts and those (student e-mails, mainly) demonstrating that most collegians just cannot write, dousing the interest. With the almost infinite airtime available the hacks were duly sworn to have to ANDERSONIZE the thing, and so the tedium quotient must approach a record. Repeating a story might be justified IF further developments were available, but they weren't, and especially as the very few remaining further developments were already quite obvious (the "loner" factor for one) there was little news, and even greater tedium.

This extremely high tedium (and irritation) factor compounds itself as the biz still thinks we all get our news by shlumpfing into a cozy chair and reading the evening paper. It is now possible to be informed anytime, but the ANDERSONIZERS assume some people are totally oblivious to the news, which seems an increasingly dubious assumption (heck, that famous question, "Where were you on December 7, 1941?" assumes the news spread pretty fast even then, so this notion has probably been obsolete for at least six decades); plus the nightly-news geriatrics are deigned somehow holy despite being less than ten percent of us. This justifies the whack-on-the-brain repetition as much as need to obsessively fill an excessive news hole. That the dolt "Prime-Time" Fahri uses "SYMBOLISM" as an excuse all but confirms THE NEWS BIZ IS BROKE AND IT WON'T CHANGE BECAUSE IT'S TOO FAT AND UGLY AND PROFITABLE.

I hate to discuss such an awful story so clinically, but dammit these reporting idiots have brains harder than reinforced concrete -- and IQs to MATCH.

One other thing: is it possible so many of these fired reporters Romy & Company always cry over are the JERNALISTIC equivalent of unneeded middle managers turning out too many unneeded reports?

P. S. Has anyone noticed Stale.com has hardly done a thing on this? Doesn't it lend itself to snarky devil's-advocate irony?