LESS THAN NOTEWORTHY HEADLINES

Did you ever read a newspaper headline or an Internet article title and think to yourself, "Duh! Is that something all that noteworthy?"

For example, yesterday I read this headline: "Arizona Sheriff says Shooting Suspect not Cooperating." The article dealt with the fact that Jaren Loughner, the 22-year old who tried to assassinate Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killed a 9-year old girl, a federal judge and four other is in the process, was not spilling his guts to the police about why he committed those horrendous acts. Don't get me wrong. I can see why an article about the incident would mention the guy's lack of cooperation, because all of us would like an answer to the question why, but to make his lack of cooperation a central point of an article doesn't seem all that noteworthy.

Both the State of Arizona and the Federal Government have launched or will be launching capital murder prosecutions against Loughner, and I have little doubt that some of those charges will result in the imposition of the death penalty. I can't say Loughner's as good as dead today, because he hasn't even had a trial, but it wouldn't be a stretch given the proclivity of Arizona jurors to send murderers to their death. Is it really that noteworthy that Loughner wouldn't lend assistance to speed up his lethal injection? In my mind, the only thing such an article does is give Loughner's criminal defense another reason for asking for a change in venue. In Loughner's case, it probably won't make any difference – we all know he did it, but that still doesn't make it relevant…or all that particularly noteworthy.

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Another headline that caught my attention was this one: "Thieves Steal Social Security Numbers: This is how they do it." Pardon me, but is it really a good idea to disseminate a step-by-step set of instructions on how to steal a neighbor's social security number? Isn't it enough to warn people about what steps they can take to prevent such thefts without giving crooks a tutorial on how to run a successful scam? Seriously, is that stupid, or what?

Everybody knows that identity theft is a big problem. Let's not make it worse than it already is by publishing a how-to guide for criminals.

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And finally, this gem just came to my attention: "Lindsay Lohan Faces Uncertain Future." Here's a thought: everybody's future is uncertain. Just because some of us have a greater chance of spending it behind bars ought not make it newsworthy, especially after a number of court-ordered rehab failures.