If I were Dictator of All Media, I would force every reporter to include a sentence in each of their stories that begins, "This is important because..." If you're a conservative blogger, the story of Anthony Weiner's tweets is important because he's a Democratic congressman, and part of their raison d'etre is to embarrass Democratic politicians whenever they can. Nothing wrong with that. A gossip web site would be able to say that it's important to their mission as well -- people read gossip web sites for prurient, personal information about public figures. But let's say you're the New York Times, or NBC News. How do you finish the sentence, "This is important because..."? Even before today's rather surprising press conference, the Weiner story had gotten an incredible amount of coverage. Nobody knew that the press conference would be so dramatic, yet there were dozens and dozens of reporters and cameras there. How would the major news organizations finish the sentence, "This is important because..."? And, smart guy, the reason I am discussing it is that I'm a media critic, and this is important because it shows the depth to which the media will sink on a slow news day/week/month.
