The Deep End of the Anna Nicole Smith saga

Yeah, crazy, I know, but there's been some great stuff written in the wake of Anna Nicole's demise (here in our backyard, to boot.)


Consider:

The late Murray Kempton once described editorial writers as "the people who come down from the hill after the battle to shoot the wounded." Nowadays, media analysts are the guys who follow behind them, going through the pockets of the dead looking for loose change.

OK, that's more about journalism. Still liked it. Let's get back to our generations Marilyn Monroe, perfectly suited to be our reality-show stunted selection.

This is the way the world ends — neither with a bang nor a whimper but with cleavage.

Nice. It gets better. (oh, yeah, this was written by LA Times scribe Tim Rutten.

Of course, one of the cheapest journalistic tricks going is to get a piece of a mindless, tawdry media frenzy by denouncing it. The writer gets to wallow profitably in whatever gutter has everybody's attention while still being wry and high-minded. The readers get to join the fun without losing their self-respect. It's a win-win sort of arrangement for a certain knowing-wink-and-sly-nod wing of the media culture.

And yet…. When a story takes on the sheer scope and intensity of the Anna Nicole Smith frenzy there's something willful in the unexamined impulse to look away. Plain curiosity is an essential ingredient of the journalistic enterprise, and those who deny its operation in the interest of some higher value usually are not entirely to be trusted.

Indeed, click above. It rocks out. And just in case you miss the heart of it:

The point is that the transformation of cable television news into a snarling verbal food fight with a scant informational component happened because the people running it decided to let the numbers run them.

And ifyou are looking for a great local take, you gotta read what the New Times kicked out.

A single television tuned to WSVN (Channel 7) reminded patients what the fuss was about: The former stripper/child bride/reality-TV star/diet victim and nationally adored train wreck had been brought to the hospital in full arrest, and somewhere on the premises, her famously bodacious body was already decomposing

RIght on.