Stop celebrity media coverage
Ruth DeFoster
Op/Ed Columnist		  

 

 

 


I still remember the day I lost all faith in the cable news media—it was June 8, 2007. I tuned in that afternoon to discover that the cable news networks—all of them—were simultaneously airing live coverage of Paris Hilton’s arrival at a court hearing.
To the casual observer, there seemed to be nothing to cover. Ms. Hilton was inside the building. There was no one to interview, no pertinent live footage to air. Still, it continued—with pundits and lawyers and viewers weighing in on Paris’ Predicament. The anchorwomen shook their coiffed heads in faint disdain and disbelief.
From one of the many news helicopters circling the courthouse, viewers could see crowds of paparazzi swarming around the building. Reporters ran frantically after caravans of black SUVs, hoping for a glimpse of Paris.
It continued for hours, with only short lapses in the Paris coverage to briefly mention the rest of the day’s news: a G8 summit, riots on the streets of Caracas, starvation in Zimbabwe, genocide in Darfur.
Then it was back to live coverage of the courthouse, where reporters and cameramen waited with bated breath for word of the verdict.
Since then I’ve made it a point not to watch cable news—the medium is too flighty, too sensational, and too driven by sound bites to adequately communicate news with any depth or context. Instead I read newspapers. I read magazines. I read online wire stories.
But I’m beginning to think there’s no escaping it—not when the Associated Press deems it fit to run articles with headlines like “Paris shifts moods, rehires publicist.” Not when celebrity-immersive news outlets like TMZ are taking exhaustive celebrity coverage to new heights of fanaticism.
Never has this trend seemed more alarming to me than during the last month, when the collective obsession of the entertainment media has been the fall from grace of Britney Spears, whose life in the spotlight seems to be leading her on a downward spiral toward madness and despair.
Headlines and top-of-the-hour broadcasts screamed about her breakdown and subsequent hospitalization—and even before her widely-publicized apparent mental collapse, her every hiccup was subject to intense scrutiny and ridicule—from the time she visited a convenience store bathroom in her bare feet to the infamous hair-shaving incident.
Her relationship with the paparazzi is necessarily complex—they ensure her fame and plaster her picture across the covers of countless magazines and TV shows, but they also congregate in swarming herds wherever she goes, often resulting in traffic accidents and (to say the least) profound frustration and irritation on the part of Ms. Spears.
I’m dismayed by the gleeful, cyclical coverage of each subsequent Britney Breakdown—as if she were any more than mortal, or any less susceptible to the unrelenting harassment of the paparazzi.
It is impossible to fathom living—or raising children—in the constant glare of flashbulbs and the weight of unreasonable expectations that accompany stardom.
I’ve never met Britney Spears, and I’m certain I never will—but the overwhelming impression I get from her is one of abject misery. It’s difficult to lead a meaningful life in the afterglow of teenage pop stardom and the immersive media coverage it entails.
I remember thinking the same thing about Anna Nicole Smith before her untimely death. And if the current trend prevails, it’s not unreasonable to think that Britney’s life might end just as disastrously.
My plea to the cable news networks and entertainment media would be this: leave Britney alone. Not only are the idle goings-on of celebrities’ lives not news, but immersive siege-like coverage of their every move is destructive to their well-being.

 

Reach Ruth DeFoster at RMDefost2404@winona.edu