HOW can we appropriately note the passing of Anna Nicole Smith? The actress and Playboy playmate who the New York Times called "famous, above all for being famous" died yesterday. She was 39, and the cause of death was not immediately available.
We could go the way of the Times and mention her tragic life and her lifelong desire to be "noticed". We could also follow cable news' example and provide 24-hour coverage of her death, including speculation about why she died. Or we could express our dismay that the top news of the past week has been primarily diaper- and centerfold-related.
The major news outlets (here's looking at you, cable news) have been so busy covering Ms Smith and what Jon Stewart referred to as "Very Accomplished Woman in Tragic Local Story" that they (as usual) missed real news that came with at least as high a dose of irony. That's right, folks: your cable news shows care more about an astronaut's Depends and a playmate's untimely death than they do about the fact that $8.8 billion in reconstruction money (some of which was cash that was stacked on pallets, lifted by forklifts and sent to Iraq on cargo planes) is unaccounted for.
It's weeks like these that remind us why so many Americans turn to foreign-based sources for their news. And that's why great magazines like The Economist have remained proudly astronaut diaper story- and Anna Nicole Smith-story-free since 1843.
