DeclinetoState
05-09-2007, 12:24 AM
OK, I don't work for AP, and this news item about non-news about Paris wouldn't even be worth posting here, except . . .
NEW YORK — So you may have heard: Paris Hilton (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:siteSearch%28%27Paris%20Hilton%27%29;) was ticketed the other day for driving with a suspended license.
Not huge news, even by celebrity-gossip standards. Here at The Associated Press, we put out an initial item of some 300 words. But it actually meant more to us than that.
It meant the end of our experimental blackout on news about Paris Hilton (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,255919,00.html#).
It was only meant to be a weeklong ban — not the boldest of journalistic initiatives, and one, we realized, that might seem hypocritical once it ended. And it wasn't based on a view of what the public should be focusing on — the war in Iraq, for example, or the upcoming election of the next leader of the free world, as opposed to the doings of a partygoing celebrity heiress/reality TV (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,255919,00.html#) star most famous for a grainy sex video.
No, editors just wanted to see what would happen if we didn't cover this media phenomenon, this creature of the Internet gossip age, for a full week. After that, we'd take it day by day. Would anyone care? Would anyone notice? And would that tell us something interesting?
. . .
However, her name did slip into copy unintentionally three times, as background: in stories about Britney Spears (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:siteSearch%28%27Britney%20Spears%27%29;), Nicole Richie (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:siteSearch%28%27Nicole%20Richie%27%29;), and even in the lead of a story about Democrats in Las Vegas.
[Emphasis added.]FOXNews.com (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,255919,00.html)
AP should try to go a week without writing about the Democrats.
NEW YORK — So you may have heard: Paris Hilton (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:siteSearch%28%27Paris%20Hilton%27%29;) was ticketed the other day for driving with a suspended license.
Not huge news, even by celebrity-gossip standards. Here at The Associated Press, we put out an initial item of some 300 words. But it actually meant more to us than that.
It meant the end of our experimental blackout on news about Paris Hilton (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,255919,00.html#).
It was only meant to be a weeklong ban — not the boldest of journalistic initiatives, and one, we realized, that might seem hypocritical once it ended. And it wasn't based on a view of what the public should be focusing on — the war in Iraq, for example, or the upcoming election of the next leader of the free world, as opposed to the doings of a partygoing celebrity heiress/reality TV (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,255919,00.html#) star most famous for a grainy sex video.
No, editors just wanted to see what would happen if we didn't cover this media phenomenon, this creature of the Internet gossip age, for a full week. After that, we'd take it day by day. Would anyone care? Would anyone notice? And would that tell us something interesting?
. . .
However, her name did slip into copy unintentionally three times, as background: in stories about Britney Spears (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:siteSearch%28%27Britney%20Spears%27%29;), Nicole Richie (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:siteSearch%28%27Nicole%20Richie%27%29;), and even in the lead of a story about Democrats in Las Vegas.
[Emphasis added.]FOXNews.com (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,255919,00.html)
AP should try to go a week without writing about the Democrats.