It's the slow, sluggish week before Labor Day, so morning shows are forced to stretch the inanity even thinner than usual, which means lots of reports about how people carry too much in their bags, and how Michael Jackson is still dead. But that's no excuse for covering non-events like The Duggars, a family made famous for reproducing more quickly and easily than Gremlins, announcing that they are adding to their litter. Michelle Duggar is pregnant. Also the sky is blue, the sun is hot, and jeggings are ugly. You heard it here first!
Wouldn't it be simpler to just do an interchangeable-Duggar-baby round-up when they hit a nice round number like 30? "Yesterday, The Duggars just gave birth to their thirtieth child, Jagger. Over the course of the past decade the Duggars have welcomed Jasmine, Jonna, Jemima, Juggalo, Jorge, Jazmeen, Jo-Jo, twins Jeepers and Jeez, and Jane into their ridiculously large freak family."
The least The Today Show could do is try to advance the story a little bit by offering a new take on it, like the psychology angle ("How many hours of therapy will each child probably need to get over their herd upbringing?") or the world impact angle ("If the Duggars continue reproducing at this rate, how long until a majority of the population is related to a Duggar?"). Because even freak shows get boring when it's just the same freak spectacle trotted out over and over and over again. No one cares if the cat woman (Jocelyn Wildenstein) gets another facial surgery so she can look even more like a cat. If she suddenly decided she wanted to get plastic surgery to look like a parakeet, however, that might be interesting. Likewise, unless the Duggars start giving birth to bunnies, no one needs to hear about their continued reproduction.