"News" coverage

Already much has been made of the disappearing bride "story" that was covered in the major media over the weekend.

I hadn't even heard anything about it until Saturday morning when it was resolved. My brother-in-law said that they found the missing bride, and I had no idea of what he was talking about. (I guess it had been covered in a minor story in the Times on Friday, when the case was still unresolved, but I missed it.) Later in the day, I went for a run on the treadmill at the gym, and was dumbfounded to see MSNBC spend thirty uninterrupted minutes covering the non-event. I didn't have headphones, so didn't listen, but it consisted of interviews with clinical psychologists talking about why she might have run away, five crappy snapshots of her staring with an artificial smile into the flash, and some footage from the 7-11 where she reappeared.

Here is the central bit about this "news":

NOTHING HAPPENED.

Repeat:

NOTHING HAPPENED.

And this was front and center on MSNBC, CNN, and presumably the fascist propaganda organ known as FOX News for several days. (When I complained to above brother-in-law, he said it was indeed a major story, because it seemed like the groom must have killed or kidnapped her.)

This merited at best some local Atlanta coverage, nothing more. I have no doubt that nearly identical fugues happen every single weekend in America: somebody gets cold feet and disappears for a while. OK, this one had the slight twist where she faked a kidnap call, but it's still not a story.

Iraq? Torture? Global warming? Darfur? Impending long-term energy crisis?

No, this is proof that the "news" vendors are selling nothing but prurient entertainment. Not news.