If it's really true that no news is good news, then I've got great news for you, today there is no news. This morning, people turned on their TVs, fired up their web browsers, picked up their newspapers and turned on their radios to find out what was going on with the world. How are things going on the campaign trail? How is the war in Iraq going? Surely a celebrity or two must have been arrested, or hospitalized or died? But there simply was no news to report. No rock stars arrested for drugs. No bloody coups. No multinational corporations laying off 15% of their workforce. No suicides, no murders, no scandals, no deaths, births, bad weather, shootings, stabbings, explosions. No sex, no violence, no new reality TV shows, no weddings, absolutely nothing is going on right now.
This morning's edition of the New York Times was it's smallest ever, weighing in at just over 3 ounces, and containing nothing but advertising. Viewers of CNN tuned in to see host Daryn Kagan staring blankly into space, while Bill O'Reilly was seen picking his nose over on Fox News. When the Google news page came up blank, most people just assumed their internet connections were down again. For John Burnett, an avid public radio listener, the first sign of trouble came when he got in his car and tuned his radio to the far left end of the dial. "Instead of insightful commentary and to the point news stories," Burnet said, "I heard the host say he had nothing to work with, and then he put on a Zeppelin record."
