News Rant Part II

While I am on a good roll with my feelings towards CNN, I'd like to point out someone who likely has the most useless job on TV: the CNN Internet Reporter. Appearing on The Situation Room, she essentially googles whatever the story of the day is, and then tells Wolf Blitzer what she found. Digging into a news story at the most shallow and easy level.
When there was that guy that went crazy on an airplane a few months ago and was shot by air marshals, she might have told us that his wife's named appeared in a community newsletter thanking volunteers for the Annual Veteran's Day picnic. And she employs her shrewd journalistic insight to leap to the conclusion that these folks were pillars of their community, leading charitable causes. Based on one google hit.
Or she might take the temperature of the blogosphere: "Bloggers are criticizing George Bush..." (Aren't we always?) This is the lazy reporters "Man on the Street" interview, which I've never liked anyway. I know what I think already, I turn on the news to find information that I don't know or can't find myself by sitting on the couch and googling.
Her bio notes that internet reporter Abbi Tatton has a master's in international politics. Did this woman laugh out loud when CNN first told her what her job would be?
Post-Script: The great irony is that it's actually kind of hard to find CNN's web reporter on their own website. I had to google, proving that if you want something from the internet you should just go straight there, not to CNN.