Swiped from
http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec="6696" Networks Criticized for Lack of Anna Nicole Smith Coverage
CNN: We Dropped the Ball
A
media watchdog group today blasted the major news networks for failing
to provide enough coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s death in the 72 hours
following the blonde bombshell’s passing.
The media watchdog
group, which calls itself The Media Watchdog Group, took the nation’s
24-hour news networks to task for what it called “scant coverage” of
the life, death and legacy of Ms. Smith.
At a press conference
in Washington, Carol Foyler, a spokesperson for the group, hit hard at
the all-news networks for giving the Anna Nicole Smith story “short
shrift.”
“Instead of staying on the Anna Nicole Smith story
nonstop, the networks would sometimes cut away to coverage of the war
in Iraq for seconds at a time,” Ms. Foyler said. “For a nation
struggling with its loss, this was like twisting the knife.”
At
CNN headquarters in Atlanta, network president Jon Klein apologized for
failing to provide seamless, wall-to-wall coverage of the Smith story,
telling reporters, “We dropped the ball.”
“I was watching our
coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s death and without warning we cut away
for an 8-second story on Darfur,” he said. “I can assure you that that
sort of thing will never happen again - not on my watch.”
Mr.
Klein added that for the foreseeable future, “at least 29 of the 30
video monitors on Wolf Blitzer’s ‘The Situation Room’ will feature Anna
Nicole Smith, and the other will have that crazy astronaut chick.”
Elsewhere,
Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell vetoed a bill that would have made English
the official language of the city, saying that it would have
discouraged President Bush from visiting.