By Staff
Scot Beard
It is not too often I will bash my chosen profession of journalism.
Recent stories, however, have led me to speak up about the quality of coverage of certain events.
That's right, I am talking about the Octo-mom.
When she gave birth to eight children in January, it was indeed newsworthy. After all, it is rather unusual to have eight kids at one time.
By the way, in case you haven't heard, she already had six children at home.
As the weeks drifted past, the lady did several interviews – each earning news coverage by all of the networks – in which no new information was gained and therefore should not have been news worthy.
When she brought the first two babies home the paparazzi was waiting at the house to get some photos of the children. Octo-mom called the cops for assistance, which made headlines again.
It's funny to me how she did everything she could to get as much publicity as possible, but does not like the idea of photographers at her house. I guess she didn't think that one through, just like she didn't think about having eight embryos implanted when she already had kids at home on welfare.
The latest news is that she fired the nurses – who were working around the clock free of charge – because she felt they were spying on her and waiting to report her to California's child welfare office.
At least there are a few people who care about the babies, which seem to be far from Octo-mom's mind.
I know the news industry is highly competitive and the desire to get a story before a rival organization is huge but isn't there something better to cover than this woman's attempt to cash in on her 15 minutes of fame?
While legitimate media such as ABC, NBC and CBS jockey for position in the Octo-mom story, real news is getting tossed to the side.
Divert those efforts to Washington, D.C. and New York to demand accountability from the businessmen and lawmakers whose poor decisions have led to the current economic crisis and lack of public trust.
Take some time to dig deeper into the outbreak of violence along the United States-Mexican border. In my opinion, drug cartels killing hundreds of people is a tad more important than what kind of car the Octo-mom is thinking about buying to transport her kids.
From one journalist to several others – look back to your notes from college and read about the various news values.
I hate to see reputable organizations decide it is better to turn to tabloid media tactics than to do the job the public trusts them with.
Octo-mom's 15 minutes should have been over in January.