The tabloidization of news is almost complete.

Look at this case. A former (former!) Speaker of the US House of Representatives has been indicted for breaking banking laws and lying to the FBI. He has not been indicted for bribery of a public official. He hasn’t been a public official himself since 2006. He’s a fairly low-profile but highly-paid lobbyist in a town that’s full of them.

His alleged crime apparently stems from an event or series of events he was willing to pay money to keep quiet, events which took place many years ago when he was a private citizen.

Yet the national press has gone all-in on this story as though the fate of the nation depended on what Haster did and when he did it. The story led “Washington Week” tonight. It led the Brooks-Shields discussion on “The News Hour.” It was given several minutes on both the CBS and NBC evening news, and I have no doubt ABC covered it extensively as well. And I’m absolutely sure that CNN and MSNBC spent hours on it today too. Fox? Well, he’s a Republican accused of doing a bad thing, so it’s not above the fold on its website, but I imagine it was discussed during the day.

Do you care about this? I don’t care about this. It has no impact on our current politics. It’s a sad tale about a man who was once very important in the US Congress but who no longer is.

Stop it, media!