Overnetworked-continued!

The following blogpost mirrors my concerns about being overnetworked in my post yesterday..

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Dear President Obama #164: Not another Michael Jackson story

Posted: 08:28 AM ET

Reporter’s Note: President Obama has not said much about Michael Jackson, which distinguishes him from pretty much everyone else in America. I’m saying plenty, however, in my daily letters to the White House.


Tom Foreman | Bio
AC360° Correspondent

Dear Mr. President,

Want to guess how many e-mails I received about Michael Jackson by 4 o’clock this afternoon? More than a hundred! You could chase Kim Jong-Il across the Korean peninsula with a ping pong paddle and I wouldn’t get that many updates. Unbelievable. One of the greatest weaknesses in my sense of judgment (and there is a lot of competition for that trophy) is my tendency to underestimate the public’s interest in celebrities, and how we, the media, will react to that.

This nationwide tendency for star gazing is worse now (or better, depending on your point of view) than I’ve ever known it before. And you know who I blame? Tanya Harding. That’s right, the figure skater.

Back when she and her thuggy pals tried to break Nancy Kerrigan’s knee to thin the competition at the Olympics, I was dispatched to Oregon to chase down the elusive Tanya. So around 2 in the morning, I and a large mob of newsfolks found ourselves huddled in the dark outside of a shopping mall/ice rink where she was practicing, calculating our odds of getting a statement as she left. As it was, she slipped out a back door, we never saw her, and I rode back to my hotel thinking, “This is a bad sign.” It was the first time I felt like my profession had utterly caved to public “interest” versus public “importance.” Come to think of it, I guess that wasn’t really Tanya’s fault.


Now, I’m not just heaping scorn. Beating up on the media is way too easy and not always fair. Kind of like pretending to throw a tennis ball just to watch your dog jump.

And I know celebrity stories in the past have sparked media storms. The Lindbergh kidnapping, for example. And hey, I covered Jon Benet as much or more than any reporter in the country. So I’m not blameless. It’s just that this age of the mega-news story, combined with our celebrity obsession, combined with our cell-phone-tweeting-texting-instant messaging-Facebook posting culture creates a runaway train at times like this; with part of the public screaming “more, more more,” and another part yelling, “less, less, less.” (I have to admit, btw, I’m in the latter category; fascinating guy, great entertainer, important cultural icon, but enough already…)

So as long as that is going on, my advice to you is pretty simple: If you are interested in the latest MJ news, stay tuned to just about any media outlet you choose. If, however, you want the rest of the news…be very, very patient. It will come back, but not in force until this hurricane has passed. And that’s assuming some other big name doesn’t wind up “hiking the Appalachian trail” (if you know what I mean) setting off another media frenzy.

Call my office if you have a moment or any additional information about Michael Jackson. Like the song says, for the foreseeable future, I’ll be there.

Regards,

Tom

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