In the news...

Wanna know what was the story that received the largest chunk of time in the 5 am news-broadcast on the radio station I listen to while working out?

It wasn't the price of oil.
It wasn't the economy.
It wasn't Obama's trip to the Middle East.
It wasn't that the missing soldier was found alive but hurt, and her husband is probably the culprit.
It wasn't a hurricane developing in the Gulf.

Oh, all of those were MENTIONED, but in terms of time-devoted-to-story, the most prominent one was:

Two female race-car drivers have a cat fight.

(And no, it is not a sports channel I listen to. And I had to search a good bit to actually find an Internet version of that story.)

I kind of hate the news outlets. Why is this important? Because it's two women generally considered to be "hot," engaged in a dispute....it's the closest thing to mud-wrestling in the Penthouse Forum allowable on the public airwaves.

And yeah, I suppose I should be grateful for slow news days, because they mean nothing too bad is happening...but why devote two and a half minutes of a four minute newscast to that? Why include the (barely comprehensible) dialog with bleeping?

I'd be willing to bet if Petty or Andretti or whoever of the men are racing these days got into a fight with someone, it wouldn't be such big news.

I wonder how many years away we are from importing that Russian news concept where the newscaster progressively takes off a piece of clothing with each story.

(And I know...women over 30 or so don't "matter" in the demographics, because our money's apparently no good, but it irritates me that if there's going to be titillation, it's almost always titillation for those who enjoy thinking about half-clothed women or women engaged in a cat fight. [don't get me wrong: I hate that there's titillation at ALL...I don't want to have to watch/listen to pieces of beefcake trying to present the news. But it does irritate me, the whole "woooo! Cat Fight!" tone with which the story was presented.]

Come to think of it? Thank God Condi Rice and Hillary Clinton aren't the ones running for president; I can just imagine what some news outlets would do with that.)