Thank GOD: AP issued week-long ban on news about Paris Hilton

[Initech]

Just when you thought the news about white female celebrities couldn't get any worse... at least some people in the press have some sanity left:

NEW YORK (AP) -- So you may have heard: Paris Hilton 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.

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 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? (Marquee blog: What do you think?)

It turned out that people noticed plenty -- but not in the way that might have been expected. None of the thousands of media outlets that depend on AP called in asking for a Paris Hilton story. No one felt a newsworthy event had been ignored. (To be fair, nothing too out-of-the-ordinary happened in the Hilton universe.)

More:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/03/02/ignoring.parishilton.ap/index.html

[yourout]

1. Now if we could get them to ban all the Anna Nichole nonsense.

ENOUGH ALREADY!

[babylonsister]

2. She's another ANS. No talent, no nothin'. She's just there. Why

do people obsess about her, or maybe they don't. The media is probably wagging this dog. No pun?:dilemma:

[Gloria]

3. Except that the coverage of said ban literally took HALF of one

page of my local Gannett rag TODAY...including a pic.....

[Chipper Chat]

4. What ever happened to the Natalee Holloway coverage?

(Seriously)
I cut off my cable back when that was wall-2-wall. Has she been permanently replaced with Anna Smith? How long will this drama go on?

[Cameron27]

5. So they end the ban

by documenting all the little dramas they skipped in the first place? I had such high hopes :sigh: