The girl we all love to hate
You have to admit, no matter how bad of a day you are having Britney Spears day has been way worse. The poor girl has been splashed over every magazine and tabloid countless times and criticized in every one of them. Now I am in no way standing up for Brit's actions, but after picking up an old October 2007 issue of US Weekly and reading the top story, "Britney Loses Custody" with this picture as the centerpiece, I started to look at the pictures and the piece itself and wonder about fair and biased reporting. Obviously, US Weekly is not held up to the same standards as the Washington Post or the New York Times but shouldn't it be held up to at least the bare minimum? The article itself is hardly what I would call "journalistic" by any means as it talks about her inappropriate behavior with her children and life in general.
The article is three pages, however the thing the eye immediately goes to are the bright, colorful and embarrassing pictures. In a side bar titled, "She Ignored the Court's Warning" this picture is displayed next to a caption that says, "September 21: Two misdemeanor counts are filed for an August hit-and-run and for driving without a California license." Another picture taken from this series says, "September 29: Still with no license, she drives her kids around Malibu, running out of gas on the Pacific Coast Highway."
I don't know if Britney really ran out of gas, or if she is crying coming out of court. What I want to know is how much do you think pictures really impact a story? Does it depend on the type of story? In a story like this, I think images say much more than the actual words. While the reporting is not balanced, neither are the pictures. Do you think that reporters should have to publish images that are fair and balanced also? For instance, maybe have a picture of Britney playing with her kids or doing something, anything really that makes her look a little less crazy?Obviously the public for the most part loves to watch her fail, but do you think our opinions would be different if we saw something different besides her getting drunk, flashing us and acting like an all around idiot? An article like this pushes me to think that photos should be held to the same standards as writing. They should be fair and balanced, showing both sides of a story. Who knows, maybe if editors published both types of pictures next to the story, we might actually start to like the girl.
6 comments:
With any other kind of reporting, I'd agree with you 100%. However, there is a lot of sub-par parenting out there. The only reason anyone cares about this situation is because she's a celebrity.
Celebrity news is centered around images of attractive people, or in many cases, attractive people caught in unflattering situations. It's not a nice, ethical thing at all, but it's something I think we all get sucked into from time to time. I remember working at Barnes and Noble, and when I got stressed out, I'd take a break and flip through the trashy tabloids, because it was an escape. That's what celebrity news is - an escape.
So, as unfair as it may be, Britney is thrown into the "celebrity news" category, so it's inevitable that she'll be caught in some unflattering pictures. And those are going to entertain more people than pictures that show her being a good, sane mother. Publications know what sells, which leads us potentially to a much wider debate, but that's all I have to say about Britney.
I agree with Amanda. In any other type of reporting, I think the images should strive to be as fair and balanced as the story. However, gossip magazines are not publications of facts. They are based on gossip-- and gossip is nothing short of mere speculation. We all know that many of the stories in gossip magazines are either made up or completely blown out of proportion. And that is precisely what makes these stories so attractive: the sensationalism.
The fact is that it does not matter how unfair or unflattering the images might be, when you have a juicy story AND the photo to back it up (even if it was completely taken out of context), you can be sure that people will eat it up. And the magazine industry is like any other, they do what they do for the money.
So in the case of Britney, if she cared so much about her image, she would not put herself in such compromising positions. Part of being a celebrity is the fame, and that is the life she chose. There are plenty of celebrities who manage to keep themselves out of the pubic eye. Why can't she do the same? Maybe because she loves the attention as much as she claims to hate it.
To be honest, I never thought about the bias images could hold in a journalistic sense. At face value, I think providing images of "both sides," if possible, would only muddle the information of articles even more.
On the other hand, this is Britney Spears we are talking about here. Remember when the Associated Press decided not to cover Paris Hilton for a weekend. Nothing happened; no one cared. I think the same can be applied to Britney Spears and pictures of her. Yes, she was America's sweetheart who feel from grace, but that has happened to more stars than I can count.
"Fair and balanced," and possibly "truthful," are words that I assume are rarely spoken at US Weekly. The photos, along with these stories, are completely acceptable for a celebrity tabloid. Whether they are doctored or fair is not important and it shouldn't be.
Britney Spears is a public figure who has created the majority of this mess for herself. Would it be wrong if the NY Times behaved this way? Maybe; but only by their standards. People in this country have their own pre-existing notions of US Weekly and the types of stories they run, so they can form their opinions as they see fit.
In my eyes, Britney is fair game. Regardless of the validity or truth held in these photos, no one, including herself, can complain about them showing up in US Weekly.
If Britney has a problem with these stories, she clearly isn't doing anything about it. If I were famous and in a similar position, I would do my best to let my behavior dictate which publications I showed up in.
I'd like to think it would be Esquire, GQ or Men's Health and not Star, US Weekly or National Enquirer.
Britney Spears is known for using the tabloid photographers just as much as they use her. It is a reciprocal relationship in a sense because she needs them in order to at least stay in the news.
I don't really have any pity for her and I don't believe US Weekly is attempting to obtain a Pulitzer Prize for the publication's reporting on the Spears drama.
If she really wanted to stay out of sight and out of mind, she wouldn't get caught on camera mingling and posing for the tabloids.
I've seen her numerous times on Entertainment tonight talking with photographers, or making snide comments to reporters to get attention.
If anything I think it would be foolish for the tabloids to dismiss the easy coverage she provides.
For whatever reason, Spears is still considered a hot commodity in America. I don't blame the tabloids for capitalizing on our interest with celebrity news.
I agree very much agree that Britney Spears and tabloid media have a reciprocal relationship. When Spears was younger, she used her sexiness to sell albums, now her craziness.
It’s interesting to note that Spears hardly promoted her new album in the traditional sense, but her use of the press mainly through tabloid newspapers, weekly magazines, and blogs created a storm of media coverage, with her at the center. Her album was number one on the charts its opening week.
I’m not at all worried about unfairly balanced coverage for our favorite Mouseketeer. She’s a public figure who knows exactly what she’s doing – even if it didn’t seem like it when she was on the MTV Video Music Award stage.
I think Rolling Stone magazine’s review of her album sums up Britney’s use of the media nicely:
Well, this is unfortunate. While judges debate her child-visitation rights, Britney Spears has released an album whose title seems to have been inspired by a major flirtini binge. On Blackout, she's singing that she's "so damn high I can't come down," anticipating a night of "dancing tabletop," and issuing a proclamation that's enough to make Sean Preston use Jayden as a protective shield from Mommy: "Maybe I'm a freak, but I don't really give a damn/I'm as crazy as a motherfucker!"
Those words may or may not reflect Britney's true feelings — she didn't write them — but what's notable is that Blackout is the first time in her career that she's voiced any real thoughts about her life. The old provocation game is still afoot, but Britney's stubbornly holding on to her freakness — it's the only form of rebellion she's got left. With a VIP list of puppet masters including Timbaland, Pharrell Williams and Bloodshy, she's all vox-tweaked and ready to bring back the stellar heavy-breathers of her youth, from the Berlin-style New Wave disco of "Heaven on Earth" to the stadium-stomping "Ooh Ooh Baby." It's telling that Blackout's two best tracks — the tabloid-bashing banger "Piece of Me" and the papa¬≠razzi-tease "Freakshow" — suggest that she believes playing the part of the cage-dancing bear is the best way to mess with the media. "Wanna see crazy?" she sings on "Freakshow." "We can show 'em!"
When she's not gearing up for a meltdown, Britney's wielding more melting-ice imagery than An Inconvenient Truth: She's gonna "break the ice," "hit defrost on ya," 'cause she's "cold as fire, baby, hot as ice." Fire and ice — Robert Frost said the world will end in one of those two ways, consumed by passion or frozen by rationalism, and it's clear which option Brit will take. But meanwhile, she's gonna crank the best pop booty jams until a social worker cuts off her supply of hits.
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