Unless you've been living under a rock for the last few weeks, you've probably been exposed to the nearly wall-to-wall coverage of the impending birth of Kate and Will's Baby. And while the media frenzy is sure to provoke some earnest "why-should-we-care?" think pieces -- as well as some morepointed"Royal-Baby-as-symbol-of-nefarious-inherited-privilege" columns -- Royal Baby coverage, much like an outbreak of Spanish Influenza, is largely inescapable.
But, just because journalists have to cover William and Kate's as yet nameless, genderless progeny, that doesn't mean they have to like it. Exhibit A is BBC newsreader Simon McCoy, seen here taking an exasperated shot at his network's round-the-clock coverage:
McCoy's snark continued well into the day withthis deadpan reading of e-mails to the BBC featuring gems like "what a load of sycophantic rubbish" and "God help us if this ends up a long labor" (sentiments with which he appears to sympathize), before admitting to the audience that, until the birth, "we're going to be speculating about this royal birth with no facts at hand."
McCoy obviously isn't the only one who feels that Royal-Baby-mania has gone over top. The Guardian website is currently offering readers of its website a "Republican" button that hides all mention of the various members of the House of Windsor.The Telegraph's Michael Deacon asks readers to sympathize for the poor cable news reporters asked to fill hours of dead air waiting for an announcement. The Independent, meanwhile, rounds up "Five Things We Didn't Need to Know About the Pregnancy" including the important news that the mother-to-be is "in a hurry to eat some curry." There's also this surreal photo gallery of the journalistic feeding frenzy, which, Reuters notes, "had taken all the disabled people's parking spaces."
Meanwhile, Russian-based broadcaster RT, which would never stoop to such fluff, is attempting to one up the Guardian in the "we-don't-care" sweepstakes by issuing a series of tweets such as this one:
While @Guardian has button clicking off #RoyalBaby coverage, @RT_com goes further with no coverage at all - now check http://t.co/BjjmxH6w1I
— RT (@RT_com) July 22, 2013
Of course, one could also say that trolling the RoyalBaby hashtag to promote just how much you don't care is not exactly rising above the fray.