Simon Dumenco, doing serious media criticism? Long ago we thought he'd abandoned that at AdAge and instead settled in for his tenure of media quizzes. (They tickle! They entertain!) And then there was Monday's column, where he took the television networks to task for their Virginia Tech coverage. It wasn't the forced product placement that brings American Idol to mind, but the commoditization of news.

News as a product? It's just awful.

But how else to explain "CNN's animated MASSACRE AT VIRGINIA TECH logo throbbed and twirled with all the subtlety of an 'American Idol' bumper" (there's that show again!), what with its "stark typewriter font (a transparent attempt, of course, at evoking the gravitas of gritty old-school journalism) in white against a blood-red background, with AT VIRGINIA TECH in black typewriter type just below it. A gaudy, twitchy animation effect caused the MASSACRE type to briefly explode outside of its red box, as did the AT VIRGINA TECH type a moment later. It took me a couple of rewind passes on my DVR to realize that the grainy gray background behind the twitching type showed a gun sight's crosshairs floating in slow motion across the screen. "

While Fox News also went with the typewriter font, ABC's Good Morning America stuck with a "gun sight's crosshairs in white against a blood-red background."

At least we made the tasteful decision ton only create a "Virginia Tech Massacre" tag.

(FNC's bug image via TVNewser)