the proliferation of soft news

I know I should be past the point where this surprises me, but I am absolutely appalled by CNN.com.

Here's what they have "above the fold" right now:

Lawyer: Clemens upset about steroid report (plus three other Mitchell Report links)
Michael Vick to judge: 'I am not the beast'
E-mails hint at astronaut love triangle
Police: LSU students die in home invasion
Ticker: Clinton discusses her apology to Obama
Cop finds 3 bodies in SUV
WPLG: 2 women, 2 kids found dead
Roaming, thieving monkeys sought in roundup 5 min
'Baseline Killer' suspect gets 438 years
Diana's love letters read at inquest
Lawmaker choked by tie in assembly brawl Video
Soldier dad pops out of girls' Xmas box Video
Man locked in his brain may get miracle
Anderson Cooper: Gorillas don't deserve this
Woman chained inside home scrawls 911 Video
Cloned cats glow red in the dark Video

Without a doubt, some of those things are BIG stories that deserve coverage, in some sense, but other than the Mitchell Report, none of this coverage has any real substantive news quality. It's just a bunch of sensationalized crap. Even the Clinton/Obama piece is two steps away from real election coverage (I discussed this sort of election coverage last week on gnovis: Election Coverage: The Seduction of Style).

Now let's take a look at what's "below the fold":

Hmm. Well, it doesn't get much better. Maybe today is just a slow news day. But there are some newsworthy topics:

N.Korea answers Bush's nuclear letter
Trade worries dominate Democrat debate
Freed terrorists behind U.N. bomb
N.J. lawmakers vote to abolish death penalty
Fannie: Home prices to sink 4-5%

Seriously? None of these five stories beats out "Gorilla's don't deserve this" or "Cop finds 3 bodies in SUV" for a spot above the fold? Don't misunderstand me, I'll advocate for the gorilla's if they're truly being wronged... I'm just questioning the ranking process for determining what goes above the fold.

End rant.