We’ll always have Paris….(gulp)
Hal Boedeker wraps up the to the hiltin’ Hilton coverage. Yes, that was a bad pun but it’s the only way I can cover this story while maintaining my sanity. What’s left of it anyways…
Paris Hilton yelled, “Mom,” and it was the scream heard round the world. Poor baby. Poor us — MSNBC and Fox News Channel couldn’t get enough of the heiress’ return to jail Friday.
Fox News even brought in Ann Coulter, who complained that the 45-day sentence handed to Hilton was unfair, because it revealed how everyone hates Hilton. Coulter also complained that the traffic judge was trying to make a name for himself with the sentence. Enjoy the irony of that analysis: the pot-calling-the-kettle routine.
I’m going to take issue with this article. CNN was as much in the thick of things re Paris coverage as the rest of the news networks were while she was being transferred from her home to court to the medical/detention facility. And each of the networks DID break away to carry coverage of the Joint Chief of Staff story. Although they all quickly went back to all-Paris, all-the-time. And the CNN anchors were right there, giggling away, eye-rolling, etc. with the rest of them. To single out just Fox and MSNBC leaves the impression that CNN spent little time on the story and that simply isn’t true.
I do think a public discussion needs to be held on what and how much celeb “news” the nets cover. It’s clear from the on-air disdain that the anchors all displayed yesterday when covering the Paris mess that they weren’t happy about having to cover it. Yet, there the nets were, covering it. These things get ratings, obviously (see Anna Nicole Smith for proof). And it’s all about ratings as we all know. So why cover news at all? Why not just turn the news networks into the televised version of the National Enquirer, etc? That’s what I’m afraid the news nets are sliding rapidly into.
Comment by Alison — June 9, 2007 @ 9:14 am
Alison, the tabloid crap is the news…the real stuff is just filler. While it should be the other way around..its not and showing this garbage does bring in quite a few new viewers. However, they’ll probably “dip” when the real stuff comes on like usual.
Comment by Terance — June 9, 2007 @ 9:48 am
Americans are hungry for “pap culture,” and they are getting it. Imagine all the cable channels devoting a half-day of reporting on these inanities, at the expense of so many more newsworthy stories to report. Time to do a blacklist on Hollywookd for a while, whose inhabitants must all be discombobulated from eating too much lotus.
Comment by RGL — June 9, 2007 @ 10:04 am
All,
Before 9-11 while America slumbered the noise coming out of the mainstream media was about Britney Spears her lack of clothes and a snake….is the media trying to put us back to sleep? They FBI & other authorities, are trying to find out a missing peice in the JFK terror plot, this happens on blips on the news, they say they don’t know all the components to the plan. The wannabes had real terrorist in Pakistan, they were trying to cordinate with, they were going to hand off the plan to the real deal. The number in the news is something like 5 people they are looking for. I believe the FBI is trying to figure out all the information they were able to gather and if the google search engine that lets you look up close with a satelite at specific geography was being utilized. I have tried this technology and I can tell you, I think some of it is months old so they are not going to view real time as far as I can tell. Oh yeah Paris is back in Jail, I feel much safer now.
Comment by Ree — June 9, 2007 @ 10:14 am
#4, No need to worry about the missing “terrorists,” many on this site have explained ad nauseam that the threat was nonexistent. Only in the “planning stages.” What were Commissioner Kelly, the FBI and the Terrorist Task Force thinking, they should have let them get, and plant the explosives along the pipeline, so that we could have a proper trial.
Comment by Susan — June 9, 2007 @ 2:00 pm
Yeah, uh, “Ree”? I think you need to loosen your tin-foil hat. Tabloid journalism has been with us for quite a few years now. I really blame OJ Simpson as the genesis of it all but I know that in reality, it goes back much further, it’s only become more blatant in the past few years. It’s not an organized “effort” on the part of the FBI, the Bush Administration, or the CIA to “divert” our attention. It’s what people WANT to see. It’s WHAT they tune in for. The second you start talking about Dafur or Third World Debt or the War, people tune out. The networks cover this crap because people will tune in and watch it and will do so in much larger numbers than if they devoted their coverage exclusively to hard news. It’s a sad commentary on today’s society but it’s just a fact of life in this century: if a network showed exclusively hard news their ratings would be far less than a network that mixed tabloid junk into the mix. Maybe part of it is human nature: maybe there is something secretly gratifying about knowing that the rich, the successful, the beautiful, are far more screwed up than the rest of us are in our middle-class, ho-hum, everyday lives. I’m not sure what the interest is really and I’m guilty, to some degree, in being interested in it myself, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t also want coverage about Dafur and genoicide and all the rest. Anyway, ratings matter and as long as this junk gets ratings and big ratings at that, we can look forward to a lot more tabloid junk in our newscasts.
Comment by Alison — June 9, 2007 @ 2:43 pm
I am old enough to remember when it was called yellow journalism and just because we all have it dished out to us daily, doesn’t mean we can’t complain about it. I believe them when they say it is difficult to fill 24 hours news cycle but I also believe they are LAZY and nobody calls them on it. It is easier for these cable news outlets to complain about tabloid people, celbutants ect This is why the want Rosie O’Donnell back on how much effort does it take to watch and make fun of her…..then go out and report on real news. I don’t for one minute believe there are not people in America, that would LIKE to be informed about things that effects them directly. If we believe the media we all live in homes with wheels on them and this is what we want to consume…really maybe somebody should do a poll of people who live in trailers and see just how many if any watch ANY news. If you have low standards it is very easy for the media to meet your expectations. By the way that isn’t a jab at people who live in affordable housing most of them are too busy trying to make a living and don’t have time to watch Paris pitch a fit.
Comment by Ree — June 9, 2007 @ 3:49 pm