CNN news alerts are, hands-down, one of my smartest email subscriptions.

In the 2+ years that I have been getting these emailed to me, I have learned a lot. These days, I feel skilled at taking the temperate of the nation, at least as determined by the CNN news alert guy. Truly, I now understand the news Americans care about.

If you’re not familiar with CNN news alerts, let me give you some background. As you might guess, they are alerts. For news. However, the news that makes it into a CNN news alert is not always the news you expect.

For example, in a non-interesting news week, I might get 5 news alerts total, divided between small and far away natural disasters, less-than-scintillating economic news, a boring sports score, and a wild card political/military/Catholic church scandal. In a week where things are happening (say, international wars, presidential elections, or hurricanes on home soil) this jumps to 10. When Michael Jackson dies, however, then you start getting 10 news alerts per day.

I’m telling you (good or bad), CNN news alerts are the pulse of the people.

This week, the CNN news alerts have been going wild (in 10 per day range) with the Rupert Murdoch mess. Although I enjoy a hot mess I’m not involved in just as much as the next gal, I wasn’t actually that interested in the Rupert Murdoch nightmare before I noticed my CNN news alerts becoming snarky. Now, I wait for the news alert with bated breath.

Here is a sample from yesterday. Emphasis my own.

At 3: 00 AM PST:

Rupert Murdoch said he is not ultimately responsible for “this fiasco,” referring to the ever-widening phone-hacking scandal clouding the operations of News Corp. He blamed “the people I trusted and the people they trusted.”

Murdoch and his son James have been answering questions from a committee of British Parliament for almost an hour. Most of the questions have focused on their knowledge of the scandal. In answering the lawmakers, the elder Murdoch has taken long pauses, asked for questions to be repeated and admitted he didn’t recognize the names of some people who had worked for him for decades.

Once the Murdochs conclude their appearance, former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks will answer questions.

 

At 4:00 AM PST (just one hour later), another:

 

Media magnate Rupert Murdoch was attacked by a man apparently carrying a plate full of shaving foam during a parliamentary hearing Tuesday, but returned unhurt. The man could be heard telling Murdoch he’s “a greedy billionaire.”

Murdoch’s wife, Wendi Deng, who was seated behind him, leaped to her feet and smashed the attacker’s hand with her own, pictures from the scene showed.

Murdoch was hit full in the face, and stunned but not injured, CNN saw.

The hearing into phone hacking was suspended for a few minutes only.

The attacker appears to be in his late 20s or early 30s. A policeman wrestled him away but the attack was already complete by then. Police arrested him and were later seen wiping foam off his face.

 

If you’re not laughing now, shame on you. This stuff is funny. Really funny. 30 Rock/Modern Family/The Office Season 1 funny.

Who is the genius writing these nuggets of gold?

If I wasn’t already married, I might just stalk them on match.com (email them a non-sucky date pitch) in a flat second.