Why it's irrelevant what ring the president-elect MIGHT HAVE bought his wife

There are several criteria for newsworthiness that journalists use ALL THE TIME to determine whether and how to pitch a story to their editors:

Timing: Is it a new event or development? We're going to skip over analysis of this one, since the "story" doesn't fit the other criteria and it therefore doesn't matter how timely it is.

Significance: Usually we measure this in number of people affected by the story. This affects, at most, five people. Obama, Michelle, their kids, and the alleged jeweler. None of us are affected by his personal decision, and this is a pretty darn good reason not to care. If the reporter thinks there's a good reason we should care, he/she should share that with us. Give impact to your story. Rule No. 1 in any good story: IMPACT.

Proximity: The U.K. is not really that close to the U.S., so they really have no business digging into the personal lives of our president-elect without significant cause to do so. For the sake of giving The Daily Mail the benefit of the doubt, geographical distance is not the only thing implied in proximity. It can also mean that a person/organization's situation is very similar to, you know, a lot of people's, and is therefore a microcosm of a larger trend/threat/what-have-you. A story that demonstrates good use of the proximity factor would be one people read and go, "Oh wow, I should keep that in mind," or "That could have been me." I don't really know of anyone doing that.

Prominence: This is the only newsworthiness criterion the ring fib fits. Because Obama is famous. If, say, Joe The Plumber bought a ring for his wife, we wouldn't -- wait, no, bad example. If your hubby bought you a new ring, I promise you it would not make the headlines. Because Obama is a prominent figure, anything and everything he does is automatically a candidate for at least the inside pages of your nearest newspaper.

Human Interest: Human interest stories can break a lot of the other rules of newsworthiness, because they're tearjerkers, inspirational pieces, amusing ones, etc. Their purpose is to evoke emotion. They often don't age quickly and are relatively timeless. The ring fib neither inspired, amused nor provoked weeping. Also, even for the two people who care today, who is going to care, say, next month?