A Day Without Klein...

I'm beginning to dread the prospect of the day CNN/US President Jonathan Klein doesn't give an interview, because the pickins are so damn good every day that he does. Today's example comes from the Philadelphia Inquirer, where Klein issues an apologia for his network's Michael Jackson trial coverage:

"If I had one decision to take back, it would be the extent of our coverage," says CNN/U.S. chief Jon Klein, six months on the job. "Looking back, we should have just covered the beginning and the end."

That's the way I want my trial coverage--no unnecessary testimony and evidence to confuse me. Just have the cameras there on the days the big crowds show up.

And it's nice to know he has no regrets about the paucity of CNN's coverage of, say, the Downing Street memo or the Darfur genocide. As to the latter, perhaps they've already decided just to cover the beginning and the end.

It was Fitzgerald, wasn't it, who said there are no second acts in American life. Apparently, there are no second acts in CNN's coverage plan, either.

UPDATE: A commenter professes to be confused whether I want more MJ coverage. Answer: if you think the trial of arguably the world's most prominent pop music celebrity is newsworthy, then an arbitrary decision just to cover the beginning and end of the trial is nonsensical. The beginning is not newsworthy at all, it's the journalistic equivalent of a ribbon-cutting on a new swath of interstate. The end--the verdict--is obviously newsworthy, but so is the testimony of significant witnesses and the introduction of significant evidence. What's significant? Ah, that's why Time Warner pays Mr. Klein the big bucks, not to say "beginning and end, that's all". IMHO.