We Love To Watch Falling Stars

It amazes me just how the media has covered the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

Even the most serious of news reporters and news shows went wall to wall with her death yesterday, almost to the level they covered the Pope's death.

The story of a 39-year-old former fashion model and actress does seem to invoke thoughts of a Hollywood movie (and I'm sure it'll soon become one), but why is this story so damn interesting?

Well, first of all, the 24-hour television news media is driven by who watches it and who watches depends on what the viewers are interested in at the time, so Anna Nicole's death would not have been a wall to wall story if we weren't so obsessed with it.

You ever notice how we love to watch celebrities fall from grace? Just look in the newsstands at your local grocery stores, the cover stories on the supermarket tabloids, what do you see? The trials and turbulent lives of famous people. The National Enquirer and The Globe have circulations of over a million (once as high as six million).

Perhaps it just makes us middle-class nobodies feel better when we see the rich and famous suffer worse than we do.

Perhaps we're all just jealous we cannot be as famous and as wealthy as these people, so we thrive on the idea of watching them suffer.

Perhaps there's something sadistic about us.