680News - Lisa Brandt

Take Paris Hilton. (Please!) Lots of people wonder what this spoiled socialite has done to possibly warrant coverage on an all-news station but the fact remains, she made news. She is an obscenely rich young woman who is an heir to the Hilton Hotel fortune and she has been making terrible choices in her young life, a few of which landed her in jail. That is very different from the tabloid journalism aspect of her existence: whom she is dating, which nightclub she got intoxicated in, etc. Sometimes it appears the lines get blurred but in our minds, the differences are very distinct.

Meanwhile, methinks many of those who say they aren’t interested in gossip doth protest too much. Yahoo Canada’s recent “buzz index” of web searches shows Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan were the top search choices for teens and young adults under 25 but the dynamic duo also ranked on top of searches conducted by the 25-45-age category. Even if these adults were merely seeking out the latest on these troubled young women only to have something to talk with their teens about over dinner, they were still showing an interest.

Many of those who complain about the coverage of Paris’s latest exploits also happen to know exactly what the woman has been up to. There’s nothing wrong with getting an occasional, carefully selected bit of juicy gossip in your day. Think of it as a small serving of sweet sorbet to cleanse the palate between the courses of “real” news stories.

All concerned will be happy that it now seems we’ve reached a saturation point as a society for all things Paris. She’ll have to do something pretty fascinating now to warrant the kind of coverage she’s been attracting. Even some magazines have promised to go “Paris Free”. The people have spoken and it appears enough is enough, depending on what she does next, which no one can predict!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 9th, 2007 at 9:44 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.