Anna Nicole Coverage Sweetens the Ratings Pot

Last week when Anna Nicole Smith died, the cable news networks were all over the story in minutes; the broadcast newscasts were all over it that night.

Almost immediately, the bashing began. The Reporters Who Cover Television, media watchdog Web sites -- even the networks' own on-air talent -- excoriated the TV outlets for lavishing so much time on the sudden, mysterious death of the gorgeous, buxom 39-year-old pinup who was famous merely for being famous.

After all, traditionally this kind of time and attention has more appropriately been reserved for the coverage of the sudden, mysterious deaths of people like Princess Di and JFK Jr. -- people famous for being -- um, more famous.

"Why are they all focused in on this story and why are they going to be providing a lot more time to Anna Nicole Smith than the war in Iraq and possible coming war with Iran?" MSNBC talking head Joe Scarborough faux-wondered that very Thursday night at 10 on his program.

"Over the course of the next hour, there will be no reporting . . . on the passing of Anna Nicole Smith," CNN's resident old gasbag Lou Dobbs sniffed at Wolf Blitzer (who'd gone into high Anna Nicole mode on "The Situation Room") as he promoted his upcoming "I'm Lou Dobbs and You're Not" show.

"Anna Nicole Smith and Our National Media Embarrassment," Web site Thinkprogress.org -- a project of the Washington think tank American Progress Action Fund (which says it's a sister advocacy organization of think tank Center for American Progress) -- said in a finger-wagging headline.

"The death of Anna Nicole Smith yesterday was a feeding frenzy for the national media," the site complained.

"Coverage of the war was drowned out: NBC's Nightly News devoted 14 seconds to Iraq compared to 3 minutes and 13 seconds to Anna Nicole. CNN referenced Anna Nicole 522% more frequently than it did Iraq. MSNBC was even worse -- 708% more references to Anna Nicole than Iraq."

"War? What war?" the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote in response to figures released this week by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. That group discovered that the unexpected death of the billionaire-wife-turned-E!-reality-series-star was last week's No. 3 news story, nearly edging out what it called "a bloody week in Iraq" -- to distinguish it from all the non-bloody weeks.

"The bosomy blonde's demise consumed a staggering 50% of the cable news hole PEJ examined on February 8 and 9," the organization wrote -- adding that those are the kinds of levels not seen since the demises of Di and JFK Jr.

Back at CNN, Blitzer got slapped again the next day by the network's official downer-guy, Jack Cafferty, who'd collected viewer e-mails grousing about the network's Anna Nicole coverage.

"That's the only story we reported [yesterday] for two solid hours and we weren't the only ones," Cafferty grumbled. "Her death was tabloid gold and apparently we just couldn't help ourselves."