RIP Anna Nicole but come on............

Enough is enough already with the constant coverage!


By John W. Whitehead

WASHINGTON - "She was entropy porn at its finest."-Cintra Wilson,
Salon


You would think that Mother Teresa had just died all over again the
way the media - especially television - is covering every nuance of the life
and death of Anna Nicole Smith.


FOX News Channel has labeled it a "tragedy," while devoting a portion
of their website to a photo essay of her life. The Today Show ranks it ahead
of their reporting o­n government corruption and cover-ups in the Libby
trial. The LA Times provides readers with a timeline of her life, such that
it was. The Houston Chronicle has printed a eulogy of sorts-thoughts from
her friends (Playboy's Hugh Hefner being o­ne of them) o­n her untimely
death.
But it is an exotic dancer-turned-model that the media is turning
itself inside out to glorify: a stripper who met an octogenarian billionaire
at the topless bar where she was working, subsequently divorced her hometown
husband in order to marry the oil tycoon, o­nly to become a widow a year
later and spend the rest of her life fighting over her inheritance and using
her notoriety to win a place in the tabloid media spotlight.


Pure and simple, Smith was a creation of the media, a porn star
personified. Playboy Playmate of the Year in 1993. Guess jeans girl for a
season or two. Producer and headliner in several movies that went bust. Star
of a TV reality show that dwelt o­n the absurdity of her life. Spokesperson
for diet pills. Mother of two: a son whose death at age 20 reflected a
fast-track culture of drugs and a baby whose paternity is being challenged
by two different men.


Anyone who dies deserves a certain amount of sympathy (to quote John
Donne: "Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in Mankind").
However, what I find offensive is the way the media has fallen over itself
in its eagerness to glorify someone who left little behind except nude
photos, a handful of lawsuits and a 5-month-old baby girl who may or may not
be an heiress.


The media's obsession can be chalked up to the white goddess syndrome.
Smith was a tall, buxom blonde who positively smoldered with eroticism and
sex, but she had no redeeming social or moral value other than as the object
of the media's devotion. As author Neal Gabler said, "She had no talent. She
couldn't sing. She couldn't dance. She couldn't act. She was attractive.
Anna Nicole Smith's job was to live a cinematic life, which could then be
broadcast by the media and entertain us. So she's an entertainer in this new
art form, which is life itself. The o­nly value she had was doing things
that had narrative components that would then show up in supermarket
tabloids. That was her life."


The true tragedy in all of this is not that Smith died but that the
media continues to fail the American public. First, they fail to give us the
news. The death of Smith is not news. Very little real news is to be found
o­n television anymore-instead it's newzak. Nearly all the news shows have
shifted into entertainment formats; otherwise, they would not draw an
audience in our entertainment-driven, non-information, low-content society.
Most of the content of news programs now largely consists of inane
entertainment items.


Second, the media has lost its way. The world is being devastated by
crisis, war and the deaths of noble, courageous people. Yet seldom are their
names even mentioned in the news. They have become mere statistics. However,
this former stripper's death has already been given more coverage than the
death of former President Gerald Ford.


Lest we forget, the media has a moral obligation to tell us what's
going o­n in our society and the world, even if we don't like it. It's what
we used to call the truth. They need to show us what's really happening.
They need to challenge us. Instead, the media simply titillates the American
public. Why? For the sake of ratings. That explains why they publicize their
own media creations like Anna Nicole Smith.


Sadly, American society is essentially an extension of television.
Some might even say that television is America's god. It holds tremendous
sway over people's minds.


Maybe it's time to turn the television off.