Click here.

Like millions of Americans, I quickly got fed up with the Monica Lewinsky feeding frenzy. We all know the media is sensationalistic, superficial, unreliable, and filled with screen-hogging egomaniacs. But we still have to watch it, especially for those occasions when, say, our government might be bombing the women and children of a Middle Eastern country because its leader is "thumbing his nose" at somebody or other.

Fortunately, while everyone else was hunting for records of White House phone sex, I got a great scoop--from the very highest unnamed sources--about an innovation that will make news viewing more gratifying. Bill Gates, that great democrat, having finally unbundled his bundle, is putting the development of "Click TV" on the R&D fast track. In the future, Click TV will be a beatific fusion of television and the web, but intermediate versions will attach a mouse to the TV, superimpose icons on the screen, and allow us to click off what we hate.

Sources at Microsoft deny that Gates's first Click TV option is to switch off the news entirely because of the damaging coverage of Microsoft's confrontation with the Justice Department, which made Gates look like the Jay Gould of the late twentieth century, only greedier.

Click TV is based on extensive focus group interviews with news viewers. Here are its main features:

The S.D. Alert icon--Flashing crimson letters warn viewers that Sam Donaldson is coming on the air. This would have been handy the night he returned, after a mercifully long absence, as ABC's White House correspondent. Looking like a bulldog on Benzedrine, eyes and veins popping, arms twitching, and adrenaline exploding, he made it clear that it really, really mattered that now he, himself, could once again yell "Mr. President, Mr. President" into the fumes while Air Force One takes off. When Donaldson and Diane Sawyer co-host a show, a bomb appears on your screen.

The Dinosaur icon--This announces that yet another irrelevant former government official is about to hold forth. Initially designed exclusively for Henry Kissinger's appearances (where the icon was a Westphalian ham), the newly expanded category would warn viewers whenever John Ehrlichman, James Baker, Marlin Fitzwater, Tony Cordesman, or Norman Schwarzkopf was coming on the air.

The Dunce Cap icon--This warns viewers about stupid new gimmicks, like ABC's latest format, which forces Peter Jennings to sit on a twirling bar stool for a goodly portion of the broadcast so he looks like Jack Paar.

The Troglodyte icon--When clicked, this turns Peggy Noonan, Fred Barnes, George Will, William Kristol, or Dick Armey into Katha Pollitt.

The Legs icon--This flashes just before a panting, salivating TV reporter exclaims, yet again, "Boy, this story really has legs!!" The icon opens a link to Hard Copy, where stories really are about legs.

The Dancing Baby icon--Already a favorite on the web and with Ally McBeal fans, the Dancing Baby alerts viewers to the infantilization of a female newsmaker. We sorely needed this when reporters insisted on referring to the twenty-four-year-old Monica Lewinsky as a "girl," and when the primary adjective they used to describe her was "fresh," as in "the fresh-faced intern, fresh out of college, full of fresh hopes, put on her fresh Wonder-bra."

The Dynamite icon--With a simple click of the finger, viewers can blow up any picture of a journalist who reports utterly unsubstantiated yet salacious rumors, while piously urging parents to get their children out of the living room. Especially handy for any reporter who cites The Drudge Report as a source.

Susan Douglas teaches Communication Studies at the University of Michigan.