Jack Engelhard (צילום: מתוך האתר האישי)
Jack Engelhard’s classic international bestselling novel Indecent Proposal, which later became a worldwide hit movie, has been republished to meet readers’ demands. His other major works include Compulsive: A Novel, his award-winning post-Holocaust Montreal memoir Escape from Mount Moriah, plus Slot Attendant: A Novel About A Novelist. His website: www.jackengelhard.comWho cares?
Covering all the news we care nothing about – that is where we are today so far as the media.
Uninformed, misinformed, barefoot and pregnant; that is what they want and that is what they’re selling.
The latest on the booming economy, the item that touches every American – any news? Not much.
Overseas, anything at all about the new terrorism conducted by Hamas through torched kites that work as incoming firebombs? They are launching them into Israel for no reason except to destroy life, limb and property. It’s happening day after day at the cost of precious wildlife and farmland, so where is the outcry?
Exposing those “peaceful protesters” (as bloodthirsty savages) would seem to be a call for headlines and pictures.
There was one feature on this from the “even-handed” Conor Powell on Fox News, but besides that, zilch from the papers and the networks.
But this you know – the Philadelphia Eagles snubbed the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and he snubbed them right back.
You know this because it’s been carried as the Top Story everywhere, but has it got anything to do with the price of tomatoes?
Nothing. So we don’t care.
But that is the media obsession of the moment, until tomorrow probably, when they find something else, equally pointless, to obsess about.
This isn’t news, and this isn’t information except to journalists who grew up ogling Woodward and Bernstein. These new pups want their own chance to bring down a president, so they are going about it every which way, from one triviality to the next, and the latest try is Melania Trump.
Since they can’t get to him, as much as they’d like, they will choose her as an object of scorn and the nitpicking has already begun.
They want to know why she hasn’t made herself public. For one thing, it’s none of their business – nobody asked about Michelle Obama when she wasn’t seen for months – but that has not stopped them from conjecturing the wildest fantasies about Melania. (She did show up on Wednesday with her husband perhaps only to quiet the taunting.)
Who cares?
We care about her, but not the news about her when in fact the news is no news. Since when is that a story?
Going back a few years, I’d be laughed out of the newsroom if I pitched anything like that, or the Eagles, as worthy for Front Page or even page 26.
Good old Fitzpatrick at the news desk would snarl, and even Jay Garfield would have a fit and tell me that this is the Inquirer not the National Enquirer.
But in an era of banality, this is news – still. Yes, the Russia Probe. To this day, this moment, it’s what makes them happy. I like to imagine someone at the editorial table asking – again?
Indeed again.
Someone needs to tell them that months ago the rest of us stopped caring about the Russia Probe, and Mueller, and Clapper, and Comey, and McCabe, and Flynn, and Brennan.
We don’t care.
How long before they get the message?
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.
He is the author of the international book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal” and most recently the two inside journalism thrillers “The Bathsheba Deadline” and “News Anchor Sweetheart, Hollywood Edition.” Engelhard is the recipient of the Ben Hecht Award for Literary Excellence. Website: www.jackengelhard.com
