The stories of Tiger Woods' accident and the couple that crashed the first state dinner of the Obama administration both got prominent play on today's network morning shows.
You can find some actual news value in the story of Tareq and Michaele Salahi, questions about the Secret Service and White House security. The couple, which arrived Tuesday with a Bravo camera crew in tow, in an apparent attempt to get on the cable channel's "Real Housewives of D.C."
This was a couple working overtime to be famous, using the shabbiest of "reality" TV outlets to make themselves known. They've risked jail -- and there's increasing talk they will be charged with something for their stunt. Whether they make it onto the show, they'll now at least be historical asterisks.
Their apparent goal is to gain the kind of fame that Tiger Woods has attained through his golf skills.
It's a level of fame that has turned a relatively minor auto accident outside his Florida home -- a one-car crash with minor injuries -- into a huge story that has been talked about incessantly since the news broke Saturday.
Part of the reason, of course, is that Woods has been a relatively boring personality. There's a possibility of scandal with stories of a mistress and now, stories of an angry Elin Nordegren, his wife.
Woods has shied away from the kind of media scrutiny that he's undergoing now. But the Salahis are actively seeking it -- although they're now attempting to charge for interviews. They were supposed to appear on Larry King's CNN show tonight, but backed out and are reportedly trying to get cash in exchange for the first draft of their story.
Just last month, Richard Heene sent a balloon aloft in another attempt to gain celebrity status, trying to sell two "reality" shows that would star him and his family. The stunt backfired as authorities were led to believe that Heene's 6-year-old son, Falcon, was onboard the balloon.
That led to charges against Heene and his wife, Mayumi. The attention still may have been a payoff for Heene, although there's no word of any TV shows in the works for him.
But all the attention focused on these phonies, against the backdrop of all the TV time given to a story like Tiger Woods' accident, only crank up the pressure on future Salahis and Heenes to do something dramatic to get the world to look at them.
While the network morning shows focused on these kinds of stories a mini-debate flared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." PR guru Donny Deutsch understood that viewer interest is driving the Woods story, while New Yorker editor David Remnick urged the news media to make a different choice. The host said he opposed the focus on such trivia.
Still, the news update at the top of the hour on Joe Scarborough's own show devoted substantial time to the personal life of Tiger and Elin, despite Scarborough's own objections.
This trend is a force of nature that is driving television -- and American culture.
That wacky Chevy Chase: NBC's Thursday night sitcom "Community" is something of a comeback for Chevy Chase, but he's been a regular part of Christmas for many people in "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," which airs tonight at 7 and 9:15 on AMC.
It's not one of my seasonal favorites, but here's a little piece of the 1989 movie.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
