What is news? Britney Spears? Nancy Grace?

It's "My Turn" again. I am back from a vacation in Mexico where I had time to watch more television news than I am comfortable with.

Between sweltering jungle heat at Mayan ruins and cool breezes drifting across white sandy beaches covered in crystal clear water and sun bathers, I was able to catch up on the latest "news" thanks to CNN and the Miami Herald newspaper.

At least I thought I would be able to catch up on news. What I got was mostly "news."

I've been disappointed with CNN before. I was barely over their 48 straight hours of Anna Nicole Smith's death coverage. I found it hard to believe they couldn't find any real news going on in the world.

When Ted Turner started CNN, I was ecstatic. Twenty-four hours of the latest news beamed right into my home.

Today - how the mighty have fallen. Not only did I suffer the Smith coverage, but it seems they enjoy filling their time with pundits, so called "experts" and columnists disguised as reporters. Five minutes of news is followed by 55 minutes of people who have nothing to do with the story giving the "facts" about it … in their opinion.

Nancy Grace is an embarrassment to me and my staff. I suffered through half of her show, labeled "CNN Headline News," according to the graphic in the lower left corner of the television. She was berating a prosecutor with pointed questions designed to confirm her opinion about a news story. What she does is not news. Her show is more akin to "The View" than "60 Minutes."

To let viewers think Nancy Grace is reporting news, is a terrible misjudgment by CNN.

"Objective journalism and an opinion column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine," according to the grandfather of television news Walter Cronkite. "Our job is to hold up the mirror - to tell and show the public what has happened."

I agree.

But why does television news focus so intently on the inane? Do we really need to consider entertainment news as real news? Britney Spears is a troubled young mother of two, but I do not really need to watch her every move. It is entertaining in a shameful, remorseless way, but it is not news.

Being a news junkie, it was hard to go cold turkey while on vacation and I continued my search for relevant information. Luckily I found the Miami Herald newspaper.

Real news with stories giving me unopinionated information beyond a headline. I need more than 25 words about an issue to understand it.

In his autobiography, "A Reporter's Life," Cronkite wrote that a single page of a newspaper gives more information than a 30-minute television newscast.

"Television (is) a high-impact medium. It does things no other force can do," Cronkite wrote. "Still, as an explored, comprehensive medium, it is not a substitute for print (newspapers)."

"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough," he wrote.

He's right. In 23 minutes - half-hour broadcast minus commercials - viewers receive at the absolute most, 2,875 words. A book on copy writing for television and radio indicates 120-125 words can be spoken every minute, but most newscasts have several minutes of music rather than talking.

If true, this opinion column would have taken 5.4 minutes - almost a quarter - of a 30-minute television newscast.

I need more than the 10-second blurb on television - 25 words - to understand a news story. I prefer to have more information than a headline and a paragraph. Most lead paragraphs in a newspaper qualify for 10 seconds of television time - they are about 24 words long.

I also need news, not just opinions by self-proclaimed experts or a steady stream of paparazzi-fed tripe. I want to know about today's stories that will become tomorrow's history and I want the full story.

Thank God for newspapers.

Bill Stevenson is the managing editor for the Columbia Basin Herald. We're told he reads anything put in front of him, in English, and takes journalism almost too seriously.