Attention, please

In these days of social media and instant, breathless reporting by the 24/7 cable shows—which have to fill air time even when there’s no news to report— it’s easy for the talking heads to get carried away. By absolutely nothing. Such as they were yesterday when the news came that GQ magazine named former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick “Citizen of the Year.” You might remember that reporters first started spelling his name correctly when he began kneeling during the national anthem.

Yes, although there are good folks in the NFL who do good for their communities—J.J. Watt raised millions for hurricane relief for Houston—the editors at the mag went in a different direction.

Our considered editorial opinion: So what? It’s been years since we’ve thought of GQ magazine. This was a publicity stunt to get the magazine back in the news, where it hasn’t been for years. Why not ignore the noise?

As a news veteran named David Brinkley once said, “The one function that TV news performs very well is that when there is no news, we give it to you with the same emphasis as if it were.” That goes double in the age of cable.