Things that are more interesting than Tiger Woods sleeping with blonde women

Image via Wikipedia

The last time I visited my family over Thanksgiving, I was subjected to the 24-hour news networks’ fascination with two idiot party crashers.

When I again returned to the mothership this week, cable news suddenly started screaming about how a rich, black athlete made the personal decision to break the bonds of marriage (something rich white men never, ever do,) and sleep with an army of hot blonde ladies. All of this is SUPER INTERESTING, and is the stuff we can’t STOP TALKING ABOUT, says the mainstream media.

Now, in order to buy that this is a VERY IMPORTANT NEWS STORY, one must put aside the fact that it is not we, the media consumers, but they, the mainstream media, that create the “news product,” so therefore they are the ones “who can’t stop talking about” Tiger Woods’s affairs.

We also have to put aside the fact that married people (especially the rich and powerful politicians) have affairs all the time. Just ask John Ensign, Mark Sanford, Rudy Guliani, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton, Gavin Newsom, John McCain (allegedly), David Vitter, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Gary Condit, and Larry Craig, to name only a few. Honestly, it’s bigger news if a politician remains faithfully married to his wife without occasionally boinking hookers.

Most of these affairs don’t really matter, and they’re usually fluff stories for the media to obsess over until they get bored and are distracted by another shiny object. However, sometimes there is a legitimate news story behind the affair. For example, John McCain’s alleged affair was with a female lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who lobbied on behalf of many companies that, as the Times reports, were “companies for whom Mr. McCain’s commerce committee was pivotal.” Kind of a big deal.

Yet, these substantive affair stories are sparse. The Woods story doesn’t really affect people. At worst, exerting all of that energy outside of his marital bedroom will mess up his drive, and then what will become of the most boring sport to ever exist, ever?

Besides, there are way more interesting things happening, and that’s not just my liberal bias talking. There are mega-huge, planet-changing, jaw-dropping stories happening right now that most people will never hear about because our awful media is failing yet again. These stories really, truly affect you, which should be the only guideline for if an event is “newsworthy.”

Here are just a few:

Blair Iraq war admission sparks fresh outrage

Tony Blair’s admission that Britain would have backed the Iraq war even if he knew it did not have weapons of mass destruction sparked outrage Sunday and calls for his prosecution for war crimes.

The former British prime minister, who backed the US-led invasion in 2003, told the BBC he would “still have thought it right to remove” Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein because of the threat he posed to the region.

Now, lawyers are seeking to prosecute Blair for little things like war crimes. Big deal? Maybe if the media covered it.

There’s also this (h/t Attaturk):

Weapons Inspector who Opposed Iraq Invasion was Murdered, say Six Top Doctors

Six doctors who believe government scientist David Kelly was murdered have launched a ground-breaking legal action to demand the inquest into his death is reopened.

They are to publish a hard-hitting report which they claim proves the weapons expert did not commit suicide as the Hutton Report decided.

I have no idea if this allegation is true, but it’s way more interesting than parading around Tiger’s mistresses and hearing them whine about how he never sent them birthday cards.

Oh, and then there’s this breaking story:

Developing nations walk out of climate talks

THE Copenhagen climate summit is in chaos after poor countries walked out of negotiations en masse today.

The G77, a group which represents 130 developing countries, walked out because it is concerned the existing Kyoto protocol will be abandoned.

I would say the fate of the planet is moderately more interesting than the Tigerpenis’s dalliances. Of course, this IS a black man fucking white women, which I hear really pisses off a certain demographic of white men, so maybe this is a ratings issue. It’s difficult to get all hot and bothered over the planet dying, I guess.