I'm sorry, what?

We have a new segment in the 5-6:30 news at the station now. They call it the "Interactive Newsroom," but since we're pandering to the general public for ratings, it's very quickly degraded into "Your NewsChannel Inside Edition."

Case in point: Today's hot topic was not some item of local or national news, nor was it even news. Sure, it was new, but it wasn't news. News has to matter. Now we cover lots of non-news, I'm kinda used to that. We do what are called kicker stories at the end of the newscast which are just kinda cute, or cool. They do serve a purpose however, as they lighten the mood a bit, since news is often so very serious. I digress . . . today's hot topic - Brittany Spears shaved her head. Seriously. And as usual, the people took the bait. It's sad.