We don’t have to treat political performance art as news

This is a story in the Chronicle about one of our Senators, who made some whiny petulant statements on social media about a celebrity best known for work in the 1980s who had posted about getting his second booster but is still wearing a mask in public because COVID is still a thing. I’m not naming names but I’m sure you know who and what I’m talking about. I’m just here to say that we don’t have to treat this sort of thing as news, even if it does happen on an otherwise slow news day. The senator in question is first and foremost an attention whore, and while one can argue that there is news value in the public statements of such an individual, this really is little more than egging on a toddler who’s having a meltdown because you turned off “Peppa Pig”. Our professional news gathering organizations could choose not to engage with this kind of ridiculous content, or they could choose to engage with them by calling them what they are, narcissistic ploys for attention by politicians who do nothing to serve the public. Reporting on it in the same way as one reports on a new bill being introduced or a committee hearing or a piece of critical analysis of legislation or a campaign does nothing but waste everyone’s time and degrade the political process by rewarding this kind of bad behavior. And now I’m going to stop wasting your time and mine on this.

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