Number One News Story with a Bullet

I've noticed a disturbing recent trend on CNN.com. Well, two recent trends, the first of which being its inexorable descent into crappiness. The second trend, the one I'd like to talk about now, is their tendency to preface just about every one of their news stories with a "Story Highlights" box that manages to summarize the entire story in three bullet points. For example, if the Second Coming were to occur some time in the next week, the Story Highlights would probably read something like this:

• Jesus Christ returns nearly 2000 years after his abrupt departure from earth
• Christ claims he will judge the living and dead for placement in either eternal glory or damnation
• "I knew all them horsemen in the sky meant something was up," says area man.

Now, I only begrudgingly read CNN.com because it offers a pretty good overall idea of the world's news. However, I really hate feeling like I'm part of the lowest common denominator that needs three-bullet story summaries. I remember a similar tactic from my first-grade reading workbooks. It's a stupid feature aimed at stupid people.

Today, CNN reached a new low. It printed a story that had something to do with Britney Spears' new bald head, and as a result was not very long. Fine. What is not fine is that they chose to grace this story, all 195 words of it, with a freaking Story Highlights box. To give you an idea of how short a story that is, this post is currently pushing 250 words. I'm not sure how mentally challenged you have to be to need a bulleted summary for a 195 word story, but I'm pretty sure that operating the computer necessary to read it would be beyond your mortal ken.