Imagine, asks essayist Stanley Bing in May 28 Fortune, “The Day That No News Broke.”
An issue devoted mostly to the state of private equity, and to the biggest single ($51 billion) deal yet, also brings humor based on the reality that television, radio and online sites such as Yahoo and Google desperately depend on traditional print outlets for coverage, often repeating print’s handiwork for days and without attribution.
But what might happen if all the morning paper had was some analysis, speculation, a poll showing we lie to pollsters and a feature underscoring that old folks were still old? Bing envisions utter panic and the near certainty that the major broadcast networks, and Fox News would be lucky to open their evening newscasts with “the story of a Siamese cat caught in a fence at Petaluma, Calif., an event that had the benefit of transpiring live.”
But he also envisions phones ringing off the hook when ratings show the newscasts’ audiences way up. And when newspapers sell every copy as a result of front pages filed with cute animal photos, how-to gardening stories and tales of drunken celebrities, a fictional media pundit herein declares, “We may never go back to anything breaking again. Seeping, maybe. Percolating, perhaps.”
Quickly: John McCain’s self-deprecating jokes on “Saturday Night Live” aside, the Economist, even if it may prove ideologically inclined to him, notes that few companies would consider a chief executive of his age. But its best is a generally upbeat appraisal of U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan which, it fears, could still be undermined not just by European reluctance to commit more troops but by an increasingly corrupt Karzai government. Indeed, “If Mr. Karzai were not a client of the West, his country might well be classified as a narco-state.” … June 2 Time explores the relative safety of vaccines for babies and also contends grandly, perhaps erroneously, that China’s earthquake has generated “a new confidence in the ability, even duty, of ordinary Chinese to contribute to building a more virtuous society and a willingness to press the government for the right to do so.” … June 2 New Yorker includes Lawrence Wright’s contention that radical Islam confronts both an internal rebellion based on doubts about murderous acts and the likely disintegration of Al Qaeda, while Jeffrey Toobin profiles Roger Stone, a notorious Republican political consultant who, aptly, takes Toobin to a swinger’s club in Miami as he strains to justify past disputed actions. … The disproportionate impacts of local disasters is detailed by Elizabeth Ferris on the Brookings Institution’s Web site, where she notes that for every one adult male who drowns in a flood, three or four women are likely to die because, in most countries, they haven’t learned to swim or climb trees. … In June Lucky, actress Amanda Peet indicates that she likes “slightly menswearish jeans with loose, feminine tops” and now is now obsessed with blue eyeliner. “It’s a little bit ’80s-trashy, but in a good way.” … You know of George Soros, moneybags donor to liberal causes, but likely not about casino multibillionaire Sheldon Adelson, who’s trying to do same on the other side of the political fence via a group called Freedom’s Watch, as Peter Stone outlines in the National Journal’s “Betting Man.” … Sports Business Journal reveals that NBC may sharply boost the traditional annual advertising rate hike for the Super Bowl, asking for an 11 percent increase, or $3 million for 30 seconds.
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