It's to Laugh (or Cry) About

Tragedy or Farce? Either Works for TV

The runaway bride has turned into a runaway television embarrassment.

A missing woman turns up safe after apparently getting cold feet about her wedding, and producers, rather than feeling embarrassed over their earlier excess, turn it into the latest national obsession.

When Jennifer Wilbanks first vanished, the heavy cable coverage -- given the medium's fatal weakness for missing-woman stories -- might have been understandable. But once we learned she had invented the tale of abduction after ducking out just days before her lavish wedding, why did the network morning shows join their cable cousins in going wild over the yarn, trotting out every available relative, friend, bridesmaid and even another woman who had bailed on her own wedding?

The formula is classic: First the media pump up the story (bride-to-be missing!) with all kinds of sinister overtones (Maybe she's been kidnapped! Maybe she's dead! Call our Laci Peterson experts!). Then they revel in the surprise ending when it turns out that she really just ran away . Next, they bring on all kinds of experts, profilers, psychologists and other talking heads to yammer about why a woman would do such a thing, with anchors asking guests what could have been going through Wilbanks's mind while airing footage of her being led away with a blanket over her head.

Television has developed an insatiable hunger for a soap opera saga with twists and turns that can be endlessly trumpeted in order to hook viewers. The rest of the media, including The Washington Post, often feel they have to play along, because the story is creating "buzz" and no one wants to seem culturally clueless.

The O.J. Simpson trial kicked off this new era a decade ago, and the sensational stories that followed, from JonBenet Ramsey to Monica Lewinsky to Elian Gonzalez (and all his dysfunctional relatives), fit the mold of news-as-argument: Everyone had to take a position on who was right and who was beneath contempt. From the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart to whether Chandra Levy was having an affair with a congressman to whether Scott Peterson murdered his wife, television has tirelessly flogged tragedies that once would have been purely local crime stories.

The nature of news is changing as we (news chiefs, editors and reporters) try to figure out what you (readers and viewers) want, why news consumption is shrinking (especially among younger folks) and what we can do to lure you back into the tent. While a newspaper's front page can feature six or seven stories, television's front page is every second, and the competition for eyeballs is fierce. This, in turn, has produced a chain reaction.

Every TV executive has a wall of monitors to track what the competition is doing. If one cable network cuts to the latest crime scene, with live pictures delivered by satellite, the pressure is intense to throw up a "breaking news" logo and do the same, and the broadcast networks and print outlets follow suit. The problem with this speeded-up news cycle is that it leaves little time for digging and double-checking, and all too much time for blather and guesswork. And if someone's life is hanging in the balance -- bingo! That's the jackpot.

Politics has its share of uncertainty -- Will Senate Republicans launch the nuclear option against filibusters? -- but let's face it, that hardly gets the blood flowing like a this-could-happen-to-you crime against an innocent family member or charges of a dastardly act by some high and mighty celebrity. Stories packed with emotion and pathos and possibly sex, once the creamy filling of the news buffet, are increasingly becoming the main course.

In the past few months -- with the presidential campaign over, the violence in Iraq numbingly familiar and the Social Security debate stalled -- TV executives have increasingly embraced tabloid tales about the famous and those who can instantly be made famous. They believe that public interest in politics and policy is tepid at best, except in wartime, and are constantly hunting for a more compelling narrative to heat things up.

Let's go to the videotape.

Ashley Smith became television's heroine du jour when she was taken hostage by a man accused of killing four people in an Atlanta courtroom, and then talked him into giving himself up (though her halo was later tarnished when we learned she had been through alcohol rehab and had given up custody of her 5-year-old daughter). Martha Stewart was turned into the comeback sensation of the year when she was released from prison, so hotly pursued that a producer for MSNBC's Dan Abrams followed her car and was doing a breathless report when he lost his cell connection. Michael Jackson's trial on child molestation charges has been a monumental media circus, eclipsing last year's proceedings against Kobe Bryant on since-dropped allegations of sexual assault, interrupted only by Robert Blake's acquittal on charges of murdering his wife.