Triumph of the Trivial

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeSometimes, a nation's priorities get off balance.  Blizzards are socking the East and Midwest.  We need to use less salt in our diets.  Charlie Sheen goes into rehab, shutting down production of his popular TV sitcom.  The Super Bowl is next Sunday, and previews of the commercials that will air during the game are already on the air.

Oh yeah.  There's a bunch of people rioting in Egypt, one of America's biggest allies.  Its president, Hosni Mubarak, has said he's stepping down after elections in September.  The multitudes who remain on the streets of Cairo just want him to go away ASAP.  You may have heard about it.

There's a reason for the triumph of the trivial.  TV networks have slashed budgets in their news departments to the point where there are hardly any bureaus in cities around the world (unless you're CNN), and they have to rely on international broadcasters like the BBC and first-person accounts from whoever is wielding a camera phone or has Internet access.

If a story is so big that it requires extra people to cover it, then the networks will send Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Brian Williams to anchor their evening news live from the scene.

Much of this event-driven international news coverage can also be explained this way:  The networks claim that Americans don't care about what goes on beyond their own borders.  Not unless it involves Our Brave Troops who are marking time in Iraq and Afghanistan, how China and India are taking away our jobs, or what Kate Middleton is going to wear at her royal wedding.  Is there a natural disaster or a political riot somewhere?  We're so there, dude.

Meanwhile, we turn on Fox News instead of CNN so we can listen to Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck react to international crises, in the hope that they know more than the rest of us.  Or maybe even Jon Stewart and his "Daily Show" colleagues can find the funny in the situation.

Some people have been calling on cable and satellite services to start adding the Arab news channel Al-Jazeera English to its lineup, as a way to balance out the lack of international coverage they get at home.  Just one problem.  Isn't Al-Jazeera best known as the go-to channel for Osama bin Laden's videotaped rants, and for its perceived anti-American slant?

If broadcasters and cable networks are too cash-strapped and ratings-blinded to tell you what's happening in the rest of the world, there's always the Internet, where you can find plenty of sites that cater to international news.  That is, until net neutrality takes over.

Meanwhile, we can all look forward to coverage of a certain groundhog seeing his own shadow.