Bye-Bye Birdie

As surely everyone knows by now, Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a hunting buddy while going after quail.

People (mostly in the news industry) are complaining that the information wasn't released soon enough.

Why is this news?

I understand the "shock value" of the whole thing- the "man-bites-dog" angle that reporters salivate over. But it's not exactly front page news. Who cares if this "story" took a half-day to break?

Here's a few topics that probably deserve more attention:

1. The bird flu- apparently it's spread to Africa, now.
2. The Muslim riots over the cartoons- still a lot of violence.
3. How Iraq has changed in the past few years.
4. Iran's burgeoning nuclear program- detente, anyone?
5. The fact that Israel will not hesitate to use atomic weaponry to stop #4.
6. The relationship between Bush and Abramoff, if it existed.
7. Genocide in the Sudan.
8. Katrina victims returning to New Orleans.
9. The millions of dollars wasted after Hurricane Katrina.
10. The "lost world" of undiscovered species recently discovered in Indonesia.

Any one of those would be a better use of time and resources than endlessly covering the fact that Cheney accidentally shot a man.

(To be fair, I did find it interesting that the doctors decided to leave the bird shot in the man's face, because taking it out would cause more damage. Other than that, I've not found anything new in any of the many stories I've read.)

I wish people would cover "hard" news more, and cut some of the fat out of reporting.