CNN officially became irrelevant today.

In the middle of a news special about insurance fraud in Mississippi, just when the plot was thickening, a breaking news alert interrupted the show. The only reason I was watching CNN was because the hotel I'm staying in has five cable channels and that was the best thing showing. But I had invested enough time into the show that I needed a payoff.

When the "CNN Breaking News" graphics started to roll, I thought maybe we found Osama or maybe it was something with Obama. As the graphics were ending, I actually said aloud, "This better not be about Anna Nicole Smith."

"We bring you development in the fight for Danielynn Smith."

Holy shit.

First of all, the birth certificate lists the baby's last name as Stern. I don't care who's the baby's daddy is and neither should anyone else except Larry Birkhead and Howard K. Stern. But, as a news organization, CNN should get its facts straight.

Then there's the holy shit of CNN's questionable editorial judgement that anything related to Anna Nicole Smith is breaking news. Even when she died, that information in no way, by any stretch of the imagination is worthy to break into regular programming.

You'd figure the way they go on and on about her death, they found Osama (or Obama) in her vagina during the autopsy.



Her death should be well documented on sites like TMZ.com, who incidentally has purchased Google keywords to help drive traffic to their coverage -- brilliant and a sign o' the times! If E! wants to break into "Talk Soup" with Ryan Seacrest or Juliana Depandi (thank god she started covering that forehead with her new hairdo) droning on about Anna Nicole, the crazy lady turned dead person, then that's probably OK, but CNN?

How many people died in the war that on February 8, 2007? What are their names? How many children were exploited in America on February 8, 2007? Where are their stories? How many patients died on February 8, 2007 because they couldn't afford healthcare? Where are their obituaries?

The third holy shit of CNN's "Breaking News" segment is that it basically was reporting that a motorcade pulled up to the house in the Bahamas where Ann Nicole was living. The guy who owns the house, changed the locks and basically a car was pulling up to the house. They didn't know who was in the car or what was being said, but it was Breaking News. Little to do with the fight for Danielynn other than mentioning Bahaman immigration law.

Don't blame the amount of coverage on the American appetite for celebrity or death or the jackpot of a celebrity death. It's too easy for these media oulets to play the hero and point the finger at the public by saying "we're simply offering the service of information to the American people." A car driving up to a house in a foreign country without any additional news is not any sort of relevant exhange with viewers.

I wasn't even surprised when someone e-mailed me news about her death. I didn't bet on her in a death pool, but regardless of the size of her breast or the fidelity of her bleached roots, crazy people die untimely deaths and she's about has crazy as they come. That's not a news flash for anyone.

CNN invented the 24-hour news cycle and now is drowning in the waste product of that invention. Hopefully next week, someone with a bigger name will die so CNN can shovel more shit into the cess pool. I'm sure they're planning out coverage of the paternity test results right now and they'll even give it a special graphic that says "Decision 2007" -- much like they do for Presidential elections.

To be fair, the other news organizations have lost their mind as well. ABC News runs "The Anna Nicole Smith Story" on Friday and then tries to justify it by running the story, "Why we're all so obsessed with every new development in this tragic tale." Regardless of the poor, redundant headline writing, if there wan't this abundance of supply, the demand, or "national obsession," wouldn't exist.

This is an internet story for now suitable for real-time discussion. If CNN wants to cover it, they should leave it to the channel's fringe journalism shows like Nancy Grace. I'm sure she's trying to figure out how Anna Nicole's death relates to the disappearance of Natalee Hollaway. When there is more information to actually report, then legitimate TV news can step in and finish the story. But only during regularly scheduled news times. I can't wait to get John Stossel's point of view about this air quote, tragedy, end air quote.

CNN, give me a break.