Anna Nicole Mania

-
Way too much coverage of this story, so this distant planet will not be piling on (or getting in line to claim paternity of the Golden Child).
"... And over the course of the next hour ... there will be no reporting ... beginning at the top of the hour... on the passing of Anna Nicole Smith. We hope you'll join us... Wolf, back to you."
I'm sure the presidential candidates breathed a collective sigh of relief for not being in the kill zone of the evening cable shows for one night. Maybe they won't even get back to Pelosi bashing when the ANS story dies down. And who is Lisa Nowack again?

This tale is guaranteed to have legs for a while yet since not even all the knuckleballs have been pitched: the latest is a claim of paternity by Prince Frederick von Anhalt, the 59-year-old husband (of 20 years) of 90-year-old Zsa Zsa Gabor. "She was a very big fan of Zsa Zsa and wanted to be like Zsa Zsa," the prince tells the AP of ANS. "She wanted to be a princess."

OK. But now back to our regular programming.

Kudos to Lou Dobbs, the uber serious CNN defender of US borders, for his tease on Thursday's Situation Room:
"... And over the course of the next hour ... there will be no reporting ... beginning at the top of the hour... on the passing of Anna Nicole Smith. We hope you'll join us... Wolf, back to you."
And a raised eyebrow to the New York Times' article, properly on page 12 and referenced on the front page, which contains this passage:
She appeared in several movies, among them “The Hudsucker Proxy” (1994) and “Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult” (1994). Her other cinematic credits include “Playboy Video Playmate Calendar” (1993); and “Playboy’s 50th Anniversary Celebration” (2003).
"Cinematic" strikes me as a snide choice, especially when "screen" is available ("movies" is spent earlier in the graf). IMDB lists these two works as, you will pardon the expression, documentaries, so that would have been acceptable as well. Too bad that choice sticks out in what is otherwise among the straightest and sanest coverage of this story.

Comments

nicole said…
This is a good article on the issue:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-rutten10feb10,1,4184250.column?coll=la-news-columns

One angle is that Americans are too depressed and alienated by the war and the upcoming elections that we must turn to stories such as this one for distraction. And, of course, we're a culture obsessed with celebrity and oddity, real or imagined.
4:43 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reuters Opinion 1.0

-
Image
R euters last week quietly ended a 156-year tradition which, more than any other, defined its character. The walls did not come tumbling down. And while for some the change might have come sooner, and for others not at all, I think it could not have come at a better time. In a blog entry Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger announced that Reuters had begun publishing commentary written by editorial staff (Reuters also announced this change with an obligatory but quaint wire advisory). The ubiquity of "debating" partisans on cable news networks and the vitriole in what is still sadly called "the blogosphere" may make this change seem less than revolutionary. Or, for that matter, not even particularly newsworthy. But for Reuters, whose dedication to the principle of unbiased reporting stems from its desire to be an honest broker of news from every boardroom and battlefield, this is big news. It comes despite an unambiguous editorial policy about the sanctity of im
Read more

I Want My Mmmmm ... TV

-
Image
Update, Feb. 19, 2010: I review the Slingbox iPhone 3G app on Epicenter: " Hands On With the Slingbox 3G iPhone App: Ahhhhhhhhh… " For me Independence Day came a day late but not a day too soon: like my forefathers I have exercised my right, my duty to throw off the shackles of terrestrial television. That is to say, I finally got my Slingbox iPhone app working. It took a long holiday weekend to get to this task, even though I was among the first to buy this shamelessly overpriced bit of software. My love affair with the Slingbox and all that it represents began at the discount table of a Staples many years ago, where I scored what is now an ancient device which seemed to offer greater freedom than proprietary alternatives which were in great numbers then, particularly one from Sony. My model SB220-100 has served me well, as has the company (in the main); last year, when the device was well out of warranty (even if it ever was for me) they sent me a replacement power supply
Read more

Run, OJ — Run!

-
Image
Apparently the presidential election is over and the Iraq War has ended. Rejoice one and all! OJ is a criminal defendant on cable TV news again! But a funny thing happened on the way to the docket: All that pre-hearing blather about a battle royale between an over-zealous prosecutor and the famously cocky unconvicted criminal failed to materialize. Despite kidnapping and armed robbery charges that could potentially land Simpson in jail for life, the D.A and Simpson's attorneys got together and made nice and have nothing but sweet praise for each other. So OJ got bail. Bail that I could make. Bail that I would lend him — but only if he promised to skip out on it. OJ's gotta take it on the lam again. And this time he has to mean it. OK — OJ has to turn over his passport, so leaving the county would be a little problematic and that Mexican equivalent of Miami Beach might be a bit out of reach (note to self: check out CNN B Roll footage for video of holes in the fence). Bu
Read more