Ate all the ice cream. Lava lamps are just globs of goo at the bottom, and still wondering who Peter Max is.

But other than that, we should have you freed…. um sometime.

He will be released if you pay a ransom of two lava lamps, a Peter Max poster and three pints of Ben ‘n Jerry’s ice cream.

Chris Mathews is the most vapid person who has ever breathed the air of a Georgetown coctail party: If there is a more superficial person on the face of the earty, then he is probably Brittany Speers’ spiritual advisor.

I have my personal opinion as to the cause. I recall reading (can’t remember where) that network news services have cut their budgets about 40% over the last decade.

Now, the on-camera talent is not getting any less, so the money is coming from the support (research) staff. We see that whether news anchor leads off a story by saying, “The Los Angeles Times reported today…” Or any other source.

What this essentially means is that that particular news organization has NO writers or researchers left. They are essentially reading the newspaper to us on the air!

This is usually followed by on camera interviews with “experts” about the topic. If the topic is controversial, the news will have two people on camera, one from “each side”.

Now, these individuals usually do not have to be paid (especially if they are political operatives), so it costs the network exactly $0 to put this “expertise” on the air.

Great for the bottom line, but rotten for news. How do we know which one is telling the truth, which is lying, or if they both are lying? Once upon a time the news organization would do some legwork and report themselves, with facts and sources.

Now they do nothing.

Celebrity items are usually easy to report as most of the high-profile targets have publicists who will write the story for them, or they get a reporter from one of the tabloids to spout off (in return for free camera time) about the topic.

It is all very cheap and all very superficial.

And it is not getting any better.

The Knight-Ridder chain sold the Philadelphia Inquirer last year. That paper, home of multiple Pulitzer Prizes was considered one of the preeminent reporting papers in the country, with many stories that were run over a period of weeks, resulting from months of research.

The first thing the new owners did was fire 25% of the reporting staff!

Now almost all the stories in the paper have the familiar (AP) in front of them, meaning this paper is just running wire copy any more.

Shallow, non-researched reporting is cheap and easy, and charlatans (of all stripes) know how to exploit it.

It’s just the rest of us who are the losers.

However, the nose hair level of detail and in depth reporting for celebrities and their every move is almost the opposite. People who do not do their own investigative journalism probably know more about Brittany Spear’s life than who is running in either primary, what interest rate changes mean, or foreign affairs.

So for deep issues affecting the security and welfare of the United States we get shallow reporting while for shallow (or hollow) celebrities, we get in depth, detailed reporting. It does make one wonder what the purpose of the 24 hour “news” filled with 30 second stories is.

In my opinion that about fits the level of detail most reporters bother to go to in researching their stories (applies to their coverage of both Right and Left, by the way).

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_weil&sid=aKZ64QcLTh1c

http://instapundit.com/archives2/014211.php