The News Value of Andrew Bynum and a Playboy Bunny

Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Heisler pulled his high horse out of the closet in order to offer up a proper monologue regarding his sadness over the Internet popularity of Andrew Bynum’s Playboy bunny piggyback ride.↵↵⇥The story by SI.com’s Arash Markazi got more than 200,000 page views and was cited by ESPN’s “SportsCenter” and “Pardon the Interruption.” We’re still waiting to see if “60 Minutes” mentions it. And whatever you think of the process, it’s not going away. Of course, we’re still trying to figure out what hits and driving traffic have to do with journalism, which, unfortunately, was rare enough in newspapers before the Internet. On the other hand, if there’s one thing everyone understands by now, it’s no traffic, no journalism.
↵⇥
↵⇥Journalism involves explaining, or at least trying to explain what things are, as opposed to what they look like, no matter how shocking or funny that is.↵↵Heisler goes on to explain that Bynum is innocent of charges pressed (misfocus, danger, stupidity, immaturity) by anonymous fans and ubiquitous analysts, on the web, television and radio. This explanation is in the form of ... well, Heisler’s word. We’re expected to believe him, prima facie. We’re, I guess, not supposed to make up our own minds until we get an official explanation from an official journalist.
↵
↵Luckily for the world, the Times’ own Andrew Kamenetzky of its Lakers Blog told us Bynum should have known better ... on Tuesday. You can sit this one out, Mark. We’ve gotten an Official Journalist Position already.↵