“Efforts to dumb down the news in America continue”

American talk show host Tom Leykis says the US media is focusing on the wrong issues such as the love child scandal around Peter Orszag, an economist in Barack Obama’s administration.

The frenzy over Orszag concerns the fact that the man, currently the Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama administration, proposed to his girlfriend six weeks after his ex-girlfriend gave birth to his out-of-wedlock daughter.

“We are continuing in our effort to dumb down the news in America to the point where even if it is some kind of a scandal, you are not going to get any news about anything on what’s really going on,” Leykis said. “You have a number of HDTV channels, and there’s 24 hours a day to fill, and they’ve got to fill them.”

He thinks the private lives of people in office are their own business and the media should discuss only their professional obligations.