indignation

I was trying like hell to stay away from the death of Jett Travolta for the simple fact that I loathe celebrity news. And this story has the “Insidertainment Tonightedition” hyenas scavenging for any scrap they can get.

But then I found something on iReport. Parents who have lost children are posting their stories. That really touched me.

It’s so easy to see celebrities like John Travolta as being above the fray. They live in a different world from the rest of us so we may have a tendency not to look at their problems as being our problems.

Yet there is no one alive who should ever have to consider burying their own children. I have three and they are each knuckleheads in their own sweet, wonderful and amazing way. I love them dearly and could never imagine life without them.

My wife and I have been blessed with healthy children, and for that we thank God. We also realize that they could be taken from us within the blink of an eye. It’s something I used to panic about. I hated to let them out of my sight for fear that I wouldn’t be there to save them from “whatever.”

Now I spend my time making sure that I love them and they know they are loved. So I don’t have any doubts or regrets should the unthinkable ever happen.

This might have floated under your radar screen, but Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt beat Michael Phelps for the title of male athlete of the year in a poll of international journalists.

This makes me a little bit crazy, as I’m a floundering swimmer. But we’re talking about a guy, in Phelps, who won eight gold medals. Forget that some of them came in relays. He still won eight gold medals. Bolt won three including one in a relay. Each athlete set world records during their incredible time in
Beijing.

But this, to me, smells more like American backlash and unfortunately it has affected an individual, who seems like a really decent guy. I think the world was expecting great things from Phelps and the U.S. was definitely expecting great things. Needless to say, the U.S. and NBC hyped the hell out of Phelps and some of the media probably got tired of the Phelpsteria.

The shame of it is, the world is pretty tired of us. And they have some right to be. As a nation, we don’t always present ourselves well, history be damned. It’s recent history that has left the indelible mark that we can hopefully erase in the coming years.

I got into the news business long enough ago that I can remember when news was news. There wasn’t such a need to entertain the public because the public came to you for information.

Now, it’s about grabbing a piece of our limited attention span that our video gaming, channel surfing, instant gratificating society has developed. So you end up with Kathy Griffin on the air with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, hosting a New Year’s Eve countdown. (At least it’s a departure from Ryan Seacrest.)

Griffin, however, seems to have a polarizing effect on people. You love her or you hate her. And some people who hate her made a point of letting her know last night. So she responded like someone who is used to dealing with hecklers in her own manner. That’s not necessarily how the television censors would have liked her to respond.

That’s the risk you take when you take someone who is used to performing in one medium and put them somewhere else. It’s probably what you should expect when you add a “performer” to your roster for a quasi-news event.

Hopefully this won’t cause a backlash against Griffin (whom I love). But it’s the risk networks are willing to take to tap into our shrinking attention span.