According to CNN, the AP imposed an experimental blackout on news about Paris Hilton last week. (This is because, of course, very little that she does is actually news.) The site explains that "editors
just wanted to see what would happen if we didn't cover this media phenomenon, this creature of the Internet gossip age, for a full week. After that, we'd take it day by day. Would anyone care? Would anyone notice? And would that tell us something interesting?"
The results of the weeklong ban were not earth-shattering, but mildly noteworthy: It turned out that people noticed plenty -- but not in the way that might have been expected. None of the thousands of media outlets that depend on AP called in asking for a Paris Hilton story. No one felt a newsworthy event had been ignored. (To be fair, nothing too out-of-the-ordinary happened in the Hilton universe.)
The reaction was to the idea of the ban, not the effects of it. There was some internal hand-wringing. Some felt we were tinkering dangerously with the news. Whom, they asked, would we ban next? Others loved the idea. "I vote we do the same for North Korea," one AP writer said facetiously.
From Anna Nicole's funeral to all those stories about U.S. weapons inspectors teams still not being able to find WMDs in Iraq, there are stories that we all wish we didn't have to read endlessly about, not because we fear the honesty of the conversation on important issues, but because these stories are largely petty, irrelevant, elevate values in conflict with our own. Or maybe they've been covered to death and they're just not news.
My question is to you, JTA readers: If you could ban news coverage of one subject, person or issue, which would it be? And what justification would you give? It's hard to choose just one, and invoking "author's privilege," I'm going to start you off with two examples, and you can take it from there.
1. The agunah issue. It's not because I don't care about agunot. It's because I don't believe this should be an issue. There should not be a contemporary rabbi alive who thinks that it's okay for a woman to be trapped in a loveless, unsatisfying or -- Heaven forbid -- abusive marriage because of a recalcitrant husband.
2. The singles "crisis." Enough already. People are not going to get married and start procreating just because you're telling them that Jewish demography depends on it. Stop calling it a crisis or a catastrophe that requires a cure. Or better yet, provide classes in social interaction, sponsor better events and increase meaningful opportunities for Jewish singles to connect.
So those are my two. How about you?
