Rant #1,765: What Is News?

I ask that question because I don't think that there is a clear answer in today's world.

What was once non-news is news today, and that is evidently what people want to hear.

Most people, but not me.

I want to hear real news, not manufactured news generated by the media.

If I want to watch "Entertainment Tonight," I will watch it. I don't want that style of news on the news shows that I watch.

I will give you an example of how things are so asunder about the news today.

When my wife and I were in Korea, our TV time was minimal, usually in the mornings as we prepared for the busy day ahead of us.

And our choices were few, because, obviously, most of the TV outlets there are in the native Korean language.

So we had about three choices, and we chose CNN International, or International CNN, whatever its official name is.

The channel is much like it is here--a 24 hour news channel--but with an international bent.

Most of the anchors and reporters on the station speak with an "international" accent, and most of the news is geared to things that are not covered on the CNN we have over here.

Heck, the sports report was really the "football" report, talking about what we call soccer ad infinitum. The only thing that kept me going through the report is that they used the international reason for watching something that you have no interest in: a pretty, bleach blond, busty anchor with a nice speaking voice.

Anyway, to get to my point, when we were away, the story that was getting much of the airplay was the terrorist attack in New York City, as well as the attack in Minnesota. There was much going on overseas, too, with the Saudis and the North Koreans.

And there was one other story, which I will get to in a moment.

I was watching CNN, and one of the anchors actually admitted that the No. 1 news story in the world at the moment--and this was taking into account the stories I just mentioned--was the Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt split.

That's right. Brangelina was more important to most people than a terrorist attack was, than possible nuclear war was.

This is where we are at with the news.

You want "Entertainment Tonight," you got it.

CNN measured this in a couple of ways, through social media, through posts and calls to their own station, and through the international coverage of such a catastrophic separation. I swear to you, they even devoted an entire half hour show to how the two movie stars will split their wealth.

Yes, this is news today, and really, is this news?

I remember that when Katie Couric became the news anchor of the CBS Evening News--the bellwether of evening national news reports on TV for decades--she was taken over the coals for making the show more "entertainment" than newsy.

She probably lost that gig because of that criticism, which I personally found unwarranted. I thought she did a good job as the anchor, but the tide was clearly changing toward media-created news from what had been.

Have you watched the CBS Evening News lately? Yes, its core is still the news, whether we are talking about terrorist attacks, nuclear bombs, or weather disturbances like Hurricane Matthew.

But Scott Pelley's show is not immune to what was shown on Couric's version of the show.

There is more entertainment news than one can shake a stick at, and the show constantly shills for its NFL football broadcasts, using feature-type news stories to bring home the point that CBS is the place to be to watch football.

And the local news shows follow suit on CBS, shilling for football at every turn and featuring news that Walter Cronkite or heck, even local newscasters like Bill Beutel, would never have allowed on their broadcasts.

Look, I realize you would probably put people to sleep if you had a newscast that dealt only with hard news. That's why even in Cronkite's day, there would be human interest stories to kind of make things easier to watch.

But when entertainment and sports news is integrated into the mix, and is taking up more of that mix than ever before, you know that something is wrong, very wrong, with what is considered to be news today.

I think it all has to do with the media and with the emergence of the Internet as our prime information source.

The media feeds us "news" that they think we want to hear, and even creates much of that news.

And with the Internet, we have forgotten to have patience with anything. Some news stories must be played out over time; the Internet allows us to pick what we want to hear about, and we can do it in a very short time, basically cherry picking what we want to read, and for how long we want to spend with a story.

And that is why "Entertainment Tonight" and "TMZ," and outlets like it, are news producers today.

Case in point is the recent Kim Kardashian robbery, which has become a major news event on both local and national news shows.

And personally, whether it is Brangelina or Kardashian, I don't like what I am seeing. What had once been the domain of gossip columnists is often today the top news story of a particular day.

That is not what I want to hear when I watch the morning or evening news, but evidently, it is what most people want to hear when they get their news, or so we are being told.

Ask most people who the vice presidential candidates are--in fact, ask them who the current vice president is--and I will bet that at least half those asked won't know.

But they will be able to tell you all about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, down to the last penny they have between them.

And that isn't even news anymore. That is, unhappily, a fact that I can't refute.