• by Jack Myers , July 20, 2007

What is the news during a week when there is no major news? What occupies the TV tabloids, the late-night talk hosts, and the major news programs? Do you ever feel like we all sit on the edge of our lounge chairs just waiting for the next news shoe to drop? When the East Side of Manhattan implodes, is there a collective sigh of relief in newsrooms? "Thank God! There's a story!" When it turns out to be a steam pipe explosion, can you almost sense shoulders slumping as news producers realize the story has no legs?

The news engine needs to be constantly fed fuel to keep burning, and when the tank is running empty, well, then, news needs to be created. In that universe, Britney Spears' bitch slapping episode with her mother Lynn becomes a story. Daniel Baldwin's cocaine addiction becomes a major news story, fed into the system by ABC's "Newsline," which also featured a major piece on eyebrow plucking this past Wednesday night. To its credit, "Nightline" also did a "Day in the Life" piece of reporting from Baghdad. But a nightly program that once prided itself on intelligent commentary on the major news stories of the day goes into a deep slump when there's no major story on which to comment.

Perhaps the biggest news story this week was a $100 million lawsuit filed against "Dateline NBC" by the sister of a Texas prosecutor who committed suicide when police approached his house as the result of a Dateline "To Catch a Predator" investigation into his alleged Internet recruitment of a 13-year-old girl for sex. "CNN Headline News" featured a major segment on the lawsuit and all the tabloid news and entertainment shows paid attention.

Bottom line, the news machine was so desperate for news this week that how and why the news itself functions became the news. NBC says no further "To Catch a Predator" features are planned, but the coverage does raise the appropriate question about how far news networks and programs can go to create the news. Are programs that uncover and track crimes, even in cooperation with law enforcement, appropriate? NBC's Chris Hanson was present, with cameras rolling, when the police approached the accused prosecutor's house, resulting in his suicide. Was the presence of cameras responsible? Was he being judged guilty by the media before being given due process?

Of course, nothing has been bigger in the news this week than the release of the new "Harry Potter" book, with the illegal release of copied pages from the book on the Internet capturing several minutes on network newscasts. First of all, publishers and owners of intellectual property need to get past the idea that they can control anything. Secondly, Scholastic and Warner Bros can be very grateful it was such a slow news week, assuring the online release was elevated to the status of major breaking news. As a follower of conspiracy theories, I'm willing to believe the "Harry Potter" content was released intentionally over the Web to create news and draw attention to the book and its surprise ending.

One person who had to be very unhappy with the slow news week was Michael Vick, the Atlanta Falcons quarterback arrested for dog fighting, a federal crime. The story transcended the sports news to become a big story when it might have been otherwise ignored. How many of us knew that dog fighting is a federal crime? I couldn't find one in-depth story about the hundreds of lives lost in Iraq this week, but dog fighting was a big story. I sure wish our president would send some American dogs to fight Iraqi dogs so we'd have a good solid case against him and maybe get Congress to take some responsibility for protecting our troops. It's comforting to know our federal government cares about protecting some living creatures, even if they're dogs and not soldiers.