• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, August 3, 2007

Are there too many celebrity scandals on TV --- or too many TV news channels chasing too little news?  Perhaps there isn't enough news about drunken, anti-Semitic, bad-driving, actors.

New research from the Pew Research Center for People & the Press say viewers believe TV news networks spend way too much time on celebrity news.

I blame this trend on the effort it takes to find real news. Couple that with lots of airtime to fill on 24-hour cable news channels, fewer resources to dig for stories, and you have a recipe for lots of time to ruminate over whether Paris Hilton went crazy because she wasn't getting enough butter on her jail-served bagel.

Naturally, these stories get quick ratings with little sweat. Enron? That's too business-complicated. The Iraq War? That's so over there -- unless it has something to do with 9/11 and a new threat on inner city buses. Katrina? Poor people struggling in one of the most storied cities in the south don't make for good visuals.

Stories about the death of Anna Nicole Smith and the subsequent custody battle over her infant daughter and the jail accounts of Paris Hilton are the low-hanging fruit.

Readers want the high glow of rich people's problems. It makes their lives seem better. Does that mean more celebrity business stories in the newly News Corp.-owned Wall Street Journal?  Not unless big pictures run alongside the copy.

Maybe you don't believe the research. Any knee-jerk reaction to the question: Do you think there's too much celebrity news on TV? - will have the politically correct response virtually all of the time.

The truly brave viewers of the Pew research are the 2% who said there wasn't enough celebrity news. I like the fact that this lot couldn't be manipulated. These are the same people who would say there should be an increase of drugs and steroid use in professional sports.

The result is this: News directors should focus on real viewers who know what they want.