The County Press

ED’S INSIGHT

Bored by the news? Not when it’s sensational!

ED FITZGERALD

ED FITZGERALD

It’s dangerous to get bored with the news. Before you realize what’s happening, you find yourself insisting that today’s headlines contain amazing, astounding and downright jaw-dropping info. You don’t even care if it’s good news or if it’s the ill winds blowing, as long as they blow your mind.

Keep your ordinary news in the can; I want extraordinary news. I identified this problem when I heard that a judge had dismissed Judge Byron Konschuh’s lawsuit against Lapeer County and also the county’s countersuit against Konschuh. Yawn.

I don’t know what I wanted. Maybe I wanted Konschuh to win and then he could ascend to supreme leader of the county formerly known as Lapeer, but since renamed Konschuhville. There would be a parade complete with marching bands and his followers would bear him through the streets on a litter (look it up, if you’re not too bored), as Konschuh kissed babies and ruled with absolute authority on such matters as which government agency must remove dead deer from the side of the road. On the other hand, the judge could’ve ruled in the county’s favor and insisted that Konschuh serve as John Biscoe’s butler, you know, like the “Seinfeld” episode.

I should be glad that this matter is closed (except for the JTC complaint against Konschuh). It was a distraction and lawyers were getting paid despite nothing getting settled. Now we can all concentrate on things that really matter, like our families — and whose turn it is to distract the kid when we drive by another dead deer on the road.

It’s natural to prefer excitement to dullness. There is plenty about government news that is flat-out boring. This you know if you’ve ever tuned in to C-SPAN. Sometimes the world of sports can provide a dose of thrilling action. A sporting event is live and unpredictable. Last Thursday I tuned in to watch the Detroit Tigers and in the ninth inning they were one, measly out away from ending an eight-game losing streak. Then the other team hit a grand slam homerun.

Sensational, eye-opening news is the new norm. Take Donald Trump, for instance. Do you remember how boring Obama was? Along comes Trump and he pays hush money to a porn star so no one would learn that he cheated on his wife shortly after she gave birth to their child. Now that’s good stuff!

Sensational stories date back to the early days of newspapering in, where else, New York City. Publishers like Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst were doing battle with “yellow journalism.” That term is credited to Erwin Wardman, the editor of the New York Press, according to Wikipedia. Nobody seems to agree why it was called yellow journalism. Apparently the newspapers of the day printed a popular comic strip that may have led to the accompanying term “yellow kid journalism.” Nowadays the members of the cartoon family, “The Simpsons,” are extremely yellow — they certainly aren’t flesh tone.

Historian Michael Robertson said, “Newspaper reporters and readers of the 1890s were much less concerned with distinguishing among factbased reporting.”

The arc of sensational news has not been consistent. The news may have started out loud and bizarre, but in the ’50s and ’60s there was an almost genteel atmosphere, with such newsmen as Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. Journalism was so polite that no one even bothered to report that President Kennedy was fooling around with Marilyn Monroe.

But that brings us to the present day. With nonstop news headlines blaring from cable television and social media, there is a lot of competition for catching your attention. I know I’m guilty of sensationalism. I’m too chicken to try news the old way, which probably explains why there’s a yellow streak running down my back.