Planet Abell

Perry Mason this is not. This is a scary combination of the OJ Simpson trial, whose judge also lost control before a national TV audience, and the Clarence Thomas hearings, where former boyfriends were brought in to testify about bad dates with Anita Hill. There is just no denying it: guilty pleasures are the best. For the past couple of days I have been glued to the set watching the bizarre courtroom of Broward County Circuit Court Judge Larry Seidlin . I'm not even sure what the proceedings are about anymore. I think it has something to do with someone named Anna Nicole Smith and who gets to decide where she might get buried. She, apparently, was a Playboy model who came into a lot of money (or didn't) after her billionaire husband (60 years her senior) passed on a few years ago, and she too died recently, leaving as her sole heir a six-month-old daughter the identity of whose biological father is in dispute. In case you haven't heard. But whatever prurient interest this ...

"The bosomy blonde’s demise consumed a staggering 50% of the cable newshole PEJ examined on February 8 and 9. Those are levels reminiscent of those pre-9/11 celebrity sagas—think Princess Di and JFK Jr." -- Project for Excellence in Journalism It seemed to me that the story was sucking all the oxygen out of the room (for as long as I could bear to watch) but the PEJ News Coverage Index for Feb 4-9 calculates that the death of Anna Nicole Smith was only the third most covered story overall -- 10% of the newshole, compared to 12% for "Iraq Policy" and 11% for "Events in Iraq." Even better: ANS comes up 5th online (behind even The Runaway Astronaut). In newspapers -- with a much tougher news hole environment -- the story isn't among the top 5. Even worse: ANS was 8% of the tiny network news hole and a whopping 50% of the limitless cable news hole on Thursday, the day she died, and Friday. But the Iraq War continued to fundamentally dominate. Even in a w...

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 princ...