Friday, July 14, 2006

"I'd Just Like to Meet Him"

Sometimes I wonder if CNN cares at all about its reputation. Today, under the heading "Law," there is a completely frivolous story about a woman who called 911 just to get a good-looking police officer to come back to her house so she could flirt and give him her number. (He had checked in with her earlier, after responding to a legitimate noise complaint she phoned in.)

The alleged point of the story is to make people aware that 911 is not a dating service. What annoys me is that everyone knows what 911 is for (with the exception of a few crazy people who might count this woman among their ranks). The county sheriff is even quoted as saying this is the first time in his experience that 911 has been used for a personal reason like this.

I feel like the story enforces the stereotype of "desperate-unmarried woman." I feel like this story could even be completely fake, or at least, exaggerated considerably. The woman apparently told the dispatcher: "I just thought he was cute. I'm 45 years old and I'd just like to meet him again, but I don't know how to go about doing that without calling 911."

Even if this is 100 percent true and she's among the ranks of desperate single girls in addition to crazys, why is this CNN homepage-worthy news?

1 comment:

Ben Monopoli said...

That story has been blinking through my Gmail RSS feed all day. I feel like, if anything, it should be in "Odds & Ends"!