There's a reason why nobody is interested in marking President Obama's first hundred days except the media.

The observance, or appraisal, or whatever, is entirely a media creation. It's as artificial as Four Corners, where four states meet because somebody decided that would be the place (turns out they were several miles off, anyway, due to surveying errors).

It all started with FDR, and ever since then, the pack journalism mentality has dictated that this so-called milestone must be the subject of innumerable news stories, analyses, and navel-gazing exercises.

Why? Because some assignment editor or news director, worried about his or her job, fears that some other news outlet will churn out a bucketload of pointless blather and that his or her boss will come in screaming, wondering why he or she didn't have the story. Hence, the pack.

All of us in the news business worry about our continuing relevance as the information superhighway becomes a light-speed torrent. One way might be to concentrate on things that really matter to people. We should be making these hundred-day appraisals every day, without ballyhoo, in such a way that they make clear how Obama's policies affect everyday lives. This other stuff is like screaming yourself hoarse in an echo chamber.