Year-in-Review Overload

Editors and news directors of the world, please stop the madness. We consumers of mass media can’t open a newspaper, turn on the TV or click on a Web site this week without a year-in-review story. 2007’s Best and Worst Movies! The Top Sports Moments of the Year! A headline on the San Francisco Giants’ Web site reads: “Memories aplenty for Giants in 2007.” (Yes, and they all sucked because the team sucked! I don’t need to see a month-by-month, blow-by-blow account of the team’s worst season in 12 years).

Every section in a newspaper feels a need to do a year-ender. The San Jose Mercury News’ restaurant reviewer even chimes in with “my 10 most memorable meals of the year.” And the Arizona Republic this week felt compelled to remind us that the year’s top local business stories include the lousy housing market and the opening of new shopping centers across the Phoenix metro area. (Why state the obvious? I mean: it’s all still happening and we see it with our own eyes every day. “For Sale” signs litter every neighborhood and houses sit empty for months on end. And, you don’t think we notice that the hundreds of acres of farmland along the freeway are suddenly replaced by a huge Best Buy or Target store?)

At least some enterprising publications are not just regurgitating old news and are trying to put a new spin in their stories. But they, too, have varying degrees of success. (more…)