How I Know I Am Too Old: I Don’t Care About Diddy
By
Leonard Zwelling
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/arts/music/sean-combs-trial-testimony-questions.html
One night I was watching the NBC Evening News with Lester Holt prior to Holt’s recent retirement. The lead story that night was about the trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs on sex trafficking and racketeering charges. The second story was about President Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia.
In what universe is the trial of a musician who clearly behaves badly more important than the first foreign trip of a new Presidential administration?
The attached article from The New York Times is about the strategies of the two sides of the Diddy trial. I don’t care. In fact, it’s worse than that. I don’t want any information about this trial to darken any news outlet with which I come into contact. Just tell me when it’s over and if he’s going to jail.
If NBC News wants to be taken seriously as a source of real news, it must erect a clear fire wall between real news and prurient garbage like this. From what I can tell, Mr. Combs is a violent abuser of women. It’s on the oft-repeated video from a hotel hallway camera. Why these women stay near him is beyond my understanding. I would think the first time you were beaten up or forced to have sex against your will, you would hop on the nearest plane you could find and get out of Dodge. What’s wrong with these people?
It seems that some of these music moguls have acquired so much wealth that they expect everyone around them to do their bidding, even if it is clearly illegal. They just don’t seem to care. They believe their own ridiculous lyrics.
And on the subject of lyrics, my son forwarded Kanye’s (Ye’s) new video extolling the virtues of Adolph Hitler. Why is this trash allowed on the Internet? I’m a strong proponent of free speech, but there has to be a limit. As Woody Allen said in Manhattan, “bricks and baseball bats” when it comes to Nazis.
Once again, I seem to come back to the observation that a world that can embrace the Diddy trial as news and the Kanye video as art is a world that can embrace Donald Trump as the President of the United States. Why? Because the vast majority of Americans are repulsed by the culture that allows a figure like Diddy to establish what appears to be a criminal enterprise and another rapper to further Nazi propaganda. They want all of this gone and believe Mr. Trump is the only one who can clean it up. They may be right.
The Diddy trial is not news. It is the criminal justice system coming late to the party, but trying to correct what has clearly become abusive and disgusting behavior that putatively legitimate news outlets feel compelled to disgorge on a nightly basis. How about exercising some judgment and just let that story go by.
“In our continuing news coverage, Diddy is still on trial. Back to you Ned.”
There is enough hatred in the world right now. Reporting on most of it is, unfortunately, a requisite for a mainstream news outlet. The Diddy trial is not news. No one needs to know any of this and if they do, I am sure they can get it on the Internet along with Tik Tok recipes and videos of influencers influencing.
NBC News and The New York Times could elect to just omit the coverage of the trial of a common criminal. But, alas, they feel compelled to serve this junk up every night, even pre-empting an important trip by the President of the United States.
No wonder people don’t trust the mainstream media. It is bordering on pornography and showing absolutely no taste and no judgment.
