I'm not the biggest celebrity news fan, but I found it a little interesting and a fairly hypocritical for the AP to intentionally ban reporting on Paris Hilton for a week.
Their so-called experimental blackout has garnered media attention from everywhere--completely defeating the purpose of the ban. Instead of seeing what people would do without Paris, nowt the interest is focused on the media and why it felt compelled to take a celebrity diet.
Their so-called experimental blackout has garnered media attention from everywhere--completely defeating the purpose of the ban. Instead of seeing what people would do without Paris, nowt the interest is focused on the media and why it felt compelled to take a celebrity diet.
The ban began on Feb 19th and extended even through Paris' 26th Beverly Hills birthday bash. (They covered her birthday, just not the party). Well, as far as I can tell...no one did anything..no one called for a Paris Hilton update...nobody noticed. Until, AP actually announced its ban.
Now, everybody is talking about it and media re-focuses on the person the AP attempted to ignore. But re-surfacing Paris Hilton forced the AP suffered a greater loss than having to report again on celebrities, and embarrassingly enough, on themselves...they are now being met with a whirlwind of questions on news tactics, selective reporting and fiddling with news. One AP editor even exclaimed, “This is a great idea—can we add North Korea?"
CNN reports that an internal AP memo about the ban had found its way to the outside world. The New York Observer included the AP ban in its Feb 28th edition, and the Gawker.com gossip site linked to it. Howard Stern was heard mentioning the ban on his radio show, and calls came in from various news outlets asking CNN their thoughts. On Editor and Publisher magazine's Web site, a reader wrote: "This is INCREDIBLE, finally a news organization that can see through this evil woman." And another: "You guys are my heroes!"
Now, everybody is talking about it and media re-focuses on the person the AP attempted to ignore. But re-surfacing Paris Hilton forced the AP suffered a greater loss than having to report again on celebrities, and embarrassingly enough, on themselves...they are now being met with a whirlwind of questions on news tactics, selective reporting and fiddling with news. One AP editor even exclaimed, “This is a great idea—can we add North Korea?"
CNN reports that an internal AP memo about the ban had found its way to the outside world. The New York Observer included the AP ban in its Feb 28th edition, and the Gawker.com gossip site linked to it. Howard Stern was heard mentioning the ban on his radio show, and calls came in from various news outlets asking CNN their thoughts. On Editor and Publisher magazine's Web site, a reader wrote: "This is INCREDIBLE, finally a news organization that can see through this evil woman." And another: "You guys are my heroes!"
CNN interviewed the AP's entertainment editor who said, "It's hard to tell what this really changes and that [AP] will continue to use [its] news judgment on each item, individually."
There's the rub--news judgment. Obviously, the AP believed that Paris Hilton was a necessary news item and one that had attained so much of their attention that they needed rehab. So, if North Korea or Iraq or anything else deemed news is decided by the editors after too many pics, too many columns or for broadcast, too many sots and vo's, will media take a break? I hope not. I'll sit on the side of optimistic faith that it's only Paris who could warrant a media detox period...one that failed nonetheless.
ER
posted by Medill Media Watch @ 1:52 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Entirely hypocritical -- a media stunt in and of itself.
Hilton's not exactly the AP's bread and butter, so why make the ban so public -- and so temporary -- other than to get people talking about [1] the AP and [2] celeb-saturation?
This whole thing is just silly. I agree ER and VLD! To propose a "week-long" ban and then bring attention to it, thus bringing even more attention to Hilton herself is just ridiculous. So what purpose did it serve? Next week they'll just go right back to coveraging every car accident, stupid comment, shopping trip etc. she takes.
to be quite honest, i never had any interest in paris hilton and whatever stupid things she may be doing. if the AP announced its week-long Paris ban, i would say it was entirely useless and not at all beneficial to the public. if the AP didn't want Paris material, why didn't it just reject any that surfaced? it didn't need to instigate a "ban" to do it.
I was actually kind of amused by the AP doing this, and in a way I thought it was good.
I'm not a fan of it being announced or having the internal memo leaked, but I think this is a call to action on news judgment for the news service - a reminder that each time someone or something does something - there needs to be a moment where editors gather to decide if this is news and if it will be covered.
Just singling out Hilton isn't enough, but for now it's a valiant effort at not letting the antics of celebutantes dictate news coverage.
Post a Comment
<< Home