The Paris Hilton Effect
Posted on May 17, 2007 by C Johnson
Culture
The digital age has re-defined the meaning of celebrity—it’s fast, cheap, easy and accessible to seemingly anyone. Tabloid empires have been built by cashing in on the celebrity craze and, sadly, now even the most respected news publications have begun to fashion similar tactics. The LA Times recently ran a story blasting the media frenzy surrounding the recent Paris Hilton trial. It appears as though now even the most respected news journals (i.e., The Times) have succumbed to the phenomena of supposed celebrity—that is to say, the attention garnered by namesakes like Paris Hilton. Names that translate into ratings—big, fat, juicy, delectable ratings. The sort of ratings enjoyed by rag television and celebrity gossip magazines. The ratings and numbers that stalwarts of the publishing industry covet, causing jittery editors (panicked over the recent migration of readers to the internet) to adopt the tactics of their less respectable counterparts.
Many mainstream newspaper and TV networks have started the practice of recording the number of hits individual stories receive on their website, resulting in rankings. So along comes a case like the Paris Hilton trial and, you better believe that since the story was red hot, respected journals everywhere indulged; saturating their pages with unprecedented coverage. And not the sober, objective coverage befitting their publication’s respective ethics. (Yes, there are still publications that actually do believe in the now archaic “e” word.) According to The Times, mainstream reporting was absent of “most of the context and perspective that serious newspaper and broadcast journalists usually deem essential when reporting on the criminal justice system.”
In an age when “hits” translate into success—never mind about the quality of content—respected publications have fallen prey to the tantalizing appeal of heavy website traffic and are, apparently, keen to have a piece of the pie no matter the cost—namely their journalistic integrity. They have, by their behavior, joined the ranks of their rag mag counterparts. Celebrity is cheap, anyone can grab a headline, but it is sad to see journals (who ought to know better) so willing to give them those headlines. The Times made the statement that changing public tastes may require serious news media give more attention to celebrity… but it should not require them to give the same attention their tabloid counterparts do. “The fact that a story you can’t avoid covering takes you into the gutter is no excuse for behaving as if you belong there.”
Read the LA Times article here
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