Short take: Media crazes

We need to be better. Our media organizations need to be covering the events that are important to our lives.

Walter Cronkite once said, "Our job is only to hold up the mirror -- to tell and show the public what has happened."

I have been quite disappointed that our top media organizations have gone after the low-hanging fruit.

A quick example is the tripping-over-each-other coverage of Britain's Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's visit to America, while right smack in the middle of America is Minot, N.D., which has literally thousands of homes under water.

We have hardworking Americans by the thousands who are homeless, and what do we decide to hold the mirror up to? You got it: a couple that was just recently married (I wonder if you heard) in England -- and that has already had enough media attention.

Same thing happened with the Caylee and Casey Anthony court case. All of the world's top media spent millions covering this case and forgot that our own government has not done anything about the Wall Street disaster and debt-ceiling crisis that is hurting our economy right now.

We need to start holding people's feet to the fire and not letting our own "look, a squirrel!" mentality of how we consume media take us down a reality TV show path that ends with us swirling around with the "Jersey Shore" buffoons on the top of the New York Times bestseller list.

We are better than this.

Rant over. Thanks for listening.

SCOTT SCHMELTZER, ALBERT LEA TRIBUNE