TuttleTree.com

Dear Fox, ABC, NBC, CNN, and every other news network,

American Idol is not news. You act like it's some big event every time someone gets voted off, let alone when someone wins the freaking show. (Pardon my french.)

There are plenty of other not-news-worthy things you could cover that I would forgive, like how things are going for Octo-Mom. But seriously. Think about it. It's a TV Gaaaaaame Shoooooow. You don't talk about Ken Jennings any more, but the man is a freaking genius. Sanjaya made it through another week? What an injustice! Surely everyone, everywhere needs to watch a couple of teleprompter-reading news puppets hash it out.

This is the paragraph where I might normally remind you we're fighting two unwinnable wars and our economy is circling the drain faster than a cat can lick its own butt with its tail up and its tongue out… but I think we're past that now, right?

Leave it to TMZ, ok? Because every now and then I might care about American Idol, and they have the intelligence to weed out the stupid stories you spend 10 minutes on (because nobody cares!), and just show the same 30 seconds of drunk Paula Abdul making a fool out of herself on loop for 3 minutes. They get us. Also, it's their job to play trash-tv. Theirs requires them to have low standards. Yours, by contrast, requires some amount of journalistic integrity.

(Sorry to quote Wikipedia, but they made me do it!)

One of the leading voices in the U.S. on the subject of Journalistic Standards and Ethics is the Society of Professional Journalists. The Preamble to its Code of Ethics states:

…public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility.

None of this is to slight American Idol itself, or people who watch it. We choose not to watch it, but we respect that it's your choice whether or not you'll watch it just the same. Still, you have to agree it's a bit ridiculous to cover it on the news…