Commentary - CNN.com at 2:39 EST, 2/21/07

This is going to be a new feature for me. Checking in on various news websites from time to time and providing a little bit of idle commentary about the subject matter available.

Ted Turner branded me early in life, so when I'm looking for a news fix online, I usually go to CNN.com first.

I'm saying this because I want you to know that I'm not picking on CNN right now. I checked MSNBC.com and FoxNews.com, and both sites are featuring the same headlines. These are the stories that the news editors have decided are 1.) Important information for the average American to know and 2.) Enticing enough to draw web traffic so that advertisers will give them money.

I make no guess as to which principal drives the editorial decisions. I think we all make those judgments on our own.

Here is what CNN is featuring "above the fold" right now:



That bleached blonde with the stringy hair and too much make up is Anna Nicole Smith's biological mother. Now that the buxom beauty has expired, we are left with her family, friends and various beaus clamoring for whatever media attention they can get.

I am intensely interested in the Anna Nicole saga from a legal standpoint. "Married" in a foreign land... a will that leaves all her assets to a son who died mysteriously just a few months earlier... a baby who has the potential to outdo Eric Cartman in a paternity contest... and a Supreme Court decision in limbo that may turn this into a money grab of epic proportions... what's not to love?

Of course, I'm not sure that this is what should be the most important story of the day, a distinction that CNN has given it by placing the story in the big box with a full color photo.

Smith was not a leader in any industry that I am aware of. She is not a head of state, or a contributor to the arts. Her celebrity is manufactured in the same mold as Paris Hilton's -- a somewhat attractive person with money and cameras pointed their way gets to be famous for no other reason than we need to have famous people to read about.

Anna Nicole Smith and her ilk exist as entertainment, and I think they should be treated as such.

Britney spears ditching rehab and Paul McCartney's ex-wife dancing on one leg occupy the lower rungs of CNN's "Top Stories" list to the right of the page. To me, that is an appropriate section for celebrity gossip and the Anna Nicole grave digging extravaganza.

England is withdrawing troops from Iraq. Iran is accelerating their nuclear programs. The Italian Prime Minister has resigned.

Any of these stories should be considered more important to the American public.

Will they drive traffic, though? I am sadly positive that they will not.