Earlier this year, I was watching CNN while waiting for a plane at Madison’s airport. Wolf Blitzer was leading a discussion on how 24-hour news networks have negatively affected the media by blending entertainment and news. After cutting the interview short, he raised his voice and told viewers to come back after the commercial break to hear about Jon Gosselin’s latest scandal.

It was the textbook definition of a *facepalm* moment. But it illustrates what I think has characterized the ’00s — a time of social and political digression not noticed even when shoved in our face.

Simply put: It’s a decade in which America failed to move forward. A decade in which, time and time again, our country and our society had the best intentions, yet fell flat on our face each and every time.

While we didn’t take part in every facet of this digression, we were there every step of the way — for both the critical events and the trends.

We saw that second plane hit Tower 2. We saw Colin Powell dangle that vial of anthrax in front of the United Nations Security Council. We saw devastating attacks in London, Madrid and Mumbai. We saw the flooded black neighborhoods in New Orleans. We saw our economy reach near collapse.

We’ve all heard the arguments about why the responses to these events were misguided at best and criminal at worst. The failed policies of George W. Bush are widely talked about, as are the dubious economic plans of Barack Obama. I’ll stop there, since we as a society had regrettably limited control over American tanks in Baghdad or FEMA’s failings.

But everyday Americans played a huge role in the societal transgressions of this decade that, in many ways, are worse than nation-building or mortgage-backed securities.

We’ve seen MSNBC, Fox News and CNN turn journalism into a constant exercise in partisan hackery and absurdity, and we’ve taken part it. We’ve clicked on Matt Drudge’s bastardization of politics 7.5 billion times in the past year. We’ve watched the intensely personal moments of stars like Britney Spears, Anna Nicole Smith, Lindsay Lohan and, most recently, Tiger Woods, and have somehow convinced ourselves we actually care about their missteps. We fawn over contestants on “American Idol” and “Dancing with the Stars.”

More than anything political or economic, the aughts will be characterized as a period in which society lost a sense of what is deserving of its attention. We no longer understand when to make a big deal about something — not the case 10 years ago.

Think about it. The biggest scandals of the ’80s and ’90s were Iran-Contra, Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill, Whitewater and Monicagate. All were political in some sense.

But what sticks out for the ’00s? Where Anna Nicole’s remains are? Nipplegate? Hilton’s drunken driving escapades? “I’mma let you finish”?

Certainly nothing overly political comes right to mind, even the scandals that do revolve around more salacious events — Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Jim McGreevey, Eliot Spitzer. We spent much more time thinking, reading and hearing about these things than we did about Scooter Libby, warrantless surveillance, the Downing Street memo or the fact that Bush fired seven federal prosecutors without giving a reason.

I truly think we are losing the ability to determine what is and isn’t news. Sure, this is the fault of journalists for catering to what society wants, but it’s more society’s fault for eating it up and demanding more and more.

This can only get worse in the ’10s. As pointed out by a Wall Street Journal columnist this week, see the Taiwanese re-creation of what happened with the Tiger Woods scandal (http://tinyurl.com/yl9h6x6) as a frightening example of what news could become.

So I ask of my fellow students, my fellow Madisonians and my fellow Americans: Be critical of what you see in the media at all times. Deconstruct and analyze advertisements you find particularly striking. Spend more time reading the Financial Times and less listening to your favorite talking head. Watch the evening news and close that Drudge tab constantly open on your Firefox. Stay far away form Perez Hilton and stop caring about the Gosselin family.

I’d like to think, as a hilarious Onion article pointed out, that 2009 is the nadir of Western civilization. But I doubt it.

We must work together to reverse the superficial nature of the ’00s. If we don’t, I’m absolutely terrified of how far society will fall in the next decade.

Kevin Bargnes ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism.