Problem Solving

If you have ever watched an infomercial, you know the usual script is to create problem that no one really has and then attempt to sell you a product which is designed to solve that suddenly-pressing problem. For example, have you ever wanted to be able to see your pasta cook horizontally in a glass tube? No, of course you haven't. No one in the history of ever has had that desire. But, just in case you had, someone made the Pasta Express so you could finally achieve that dream. (And, in case you were wondering - yes, you can have a second Pasta Express for free as long as you call within the next 10 minutes, just pay shipping and handling.) You might not expect this practice to work because you are hoping that people were a little too smart to fall for it, but a couple millions Snuggies sold should probably tell you otherwise. It is a very annoying tactic which really destroys the already shaky credibility of the infomercial. But you can't get all that upset about it, because at the end of the day it's just one step above a carnival barker and what are you expecting from these people? The problem is that this same "create a problem just to solve it" principle has begun to spread and now we have started to see it seep into the world of 24-hour cable news.

I understand that when you have an entire day's worth of airtime to fill you occasionally have to do a few fluff pieces to try and just make it to the next commercial break, but there is a difference between making marginal stories into major news (hello, every story concerning a Kardashian) and flat-out creating news from thin air. Yet, here is how most news cycles appear to work these days: report on an actual, interesting news story, run every angle of that story into the ground, start to make up even more angles once the normal and obvious ones have been exhausted, turn over every rock and go to the fringes of society to try and find a fresh voice to give their opinion on one of these angles, put that fresh voice on air only to have them say something crazy, act shocked that a person you found under a rock and are paying to say something crazy has said something crazy and then begin a panel discussion about the responsibility of journalism and whether or not we should all stop saying such crazy stuff on TV as everyone involved nods grimly to try and look stoic. That should get you through a slow Tuesday. It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy on steroids. Honestly, it seems as though this happens so much you would think it was a carnival ride and everyone has to take a turn as the person saying the craziest thing as part of their contracts.

The person in the ringer this week is Nancy Grace. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit I can't stand Nancy Grace. I find her to be grating on every level and look forward to the day when she finally goes the way of Glenn Beck, having a show on a network only available in 3% of homes. But, I get that she has carved out a pretty profitable spot as the crazy legal analyst who has made a career out of saying outlandish things on TV with no proof to back it up. Up until now no one has called her on it. But last week she was on TV discussing the death of Whitney Houston when during one particular TV spot she said she was very interested to see Houston's autopsy results, because she wanted to know if Whitney had been held under water and drowned on purpose. Despite the fact that no one investigating the crime had brought that up, even as a remote possibility, out of nowhere we had a murder on our hands. Even for Nancy Grace, this was out there. When the anchor (lightly) challenged her on just where they hell this speculation could be coming from, she got pissy and played the, "I was a lawyer!" card, as if having a law degree automatically made you incapable of saying stupid things. Grace, not exactly owning a ton of credibility to begin with, was suddenly burning through it at an alarming rate.

Now, I've done some live radio and TV, which means I know that sometimes these "experts" are just trying to make it from point A to point B without saying something which gets them fired and that every once in a while they screw that task up. It is why I am a lot more forgiving of people who say stupid things versus the people who write stupid things. But, Grace has a history of this kind of insane theorizing, so she might be out of "oops" cards. Still, with all that being said and as much as I am not a fan of Nancy Grace, I find the mock outrage by the other pundits on the cable news networks just as laughable. Frankly, if it wasn't her saying something stupid it was just a matter of time before one of them said it, so they should probably be sending her a fruit basket as a thank you. Instead they are showing all the outrage of Dr. Frankenstein being shocked when he couldn't control his monster. They are the ones who gave the crazy person a platform and made it appears as though she was a legitimate expert, all the while quietly rooting for her to say something controversial. You can't get everything you want and then be fake-mad about it.

It used to be that you had to work really hard and build up some credibility before you would be put on television with the word 'expert' under your name. But now, much like anyone on VH1 can call themselves a comedian, anyone who can promise to fill four minutes of airtime without swearing gets invited on TV to weigh in on the latest hot-button issues. Normal people might recognize that some of these 'experts' are not to be believed, but unfortunately, a lot of people who aren't normal watch a lot of television, which means they might take some of these morons as the Gospel truth. You know, it's all going to be fun and games until someone says something that is so inflammatory it gets someone hurt. So, here is what I want to happen: let's see if the producers of these shows can work a little harder on finding people a little less insane to put on television. I know it might take some more time and since all the money in television is for the people in front of the cameras or up in the offices, they probably aren't be paid enough to give their best effort, but how about they do it out of a sense of pride, or at least the idea that what they are putting on TV is important to someone? (Of course, I asked this before doing a Wikipedia search which revealed that Nancy Grace has had three shows of her own. Never mind - we're screwed.)