Time To Tune Out Charlie Sheen. I AGREE.

Time to tune out Charlie Sheen.

Game-changing revolution in the Middle East, most lately in Libya?

The most comprehensive report on American women since the early 1960s?

Eh, they can wait.

Apparently the spiraling mental state of sitcom star Charlie Sheen cannot.

He's here, he's there, he's everywhere, morning, noon and night. Even if you try to miss him — live or Memorex — you can't: “Today.” “Good Morning, America.” “20/20.” “Piers Morgan.” Etc.

Why the media (news and entertainment media, if there is indeed any difference anymore) absorption in the unraveling, and willingly ubiquitous, Mr. Sheen?

Because he's on television, dummy. (Which demonstrates again how prophetic Paddy Chayefsky's 1976 film, “Network,” from which that line came, is still proving to be.)

Would any news or entertainment outlet devote an hour or a section to Joe Schmo's deconstruction on the work, home and mind fronts? As important a question: Would anyone watch or read it? But a $1.8 million-per-episode television guy? Big business. Ratings have plumped up as Mr. Sheen has melted down.

If the suits are pleased, not everyone else is, and some media observers are saying the Sheen play has far exceeded its legitimate aspects as a news story and is reaching dangerous and irresponsible territory. A piece by Julie Moos on poynter.org, a journalism website, provides a roundup of tsk-tsks about interviewers as enablers to a sad and possibly sick man, rather than trainers of spotlights on issues such as substance abuse and domestic violence.

But that's only part of the equation. The American news consumer is the other.

You don't watch this, they don't do this.

Why are you watching?