About That Anna Nicole Coverage…

By: Brian Montopoli
Topics: In The News

OK, let's talk Anna Nicole. There has been nearly wall-to-wall coverage of her death on the cable networks, and all three nightly newscasts covered it as well. The "Evening News" did the story about 10 minutes into the show – you can see it by clicking on the video box at left.

Video:
Anna Nicole Smith Dead At 39

Smith came to be a symbol of our celebrity-saturated media landscape, something not lost on journalists. As TV Newser notes, Brian Williams introduced the NBC "Nightly News" coverage like this: "This may say a lot about our current culture of celebrity and media these days when all the major cable news networks switched over to nonstop live coverage this afternoon when word arrived that Anna Nicole Smith had died."

On CNN, however, anchor Don Lemon said the celebrity factor had little to do with his network's coverage, arguing it was a legal story. "With everything that's going on with Anna Nicole Smith, that's the reason we've covering it, because it sort of supersedes entertainment. There are a couple of lawsuits at stake here, and it's just been a very tumultuous time for her," he said. His colleague Lou Dobbs, meanwhile, gloated in a promo for his program that he wasn't covering the story.

Smith's death was undoubtedly news, and some level of coverage is certainly justifiable. I may be in the minority here, but the coverage doesn't bother me the way coverage of stories like the "runaway bride" did. Smith's life was deeply compelling, deeply weird, and deeply American – Gawker's snotty but not entirely unaffectionate obit illustrates that fairly nicely. And the legal situation her death presents is pretty interesting. Would I like to see the media spend more time on serious matters and less speculating about her death? Sure. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't care about the story at all.

Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is the senior political reporter at CBSNews.com.
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by llcoolwsr February 9, 2007 8:28 PM EST: Well, we certainly live in a "Jerry Springer-Trailer Trash" world when Anna Nicole Smith and her inevitably premature death gets such large amounts of press.
Just like so many bible belt peroxide hair, breast implanted teenage pregnant hillbillies are so inclined. The BIG DREAM to be like Marilyn Monroe!!
Well, this one actually got as close as any 87 IQ'd,coked up,soft pornstar could ever hope.
Let's move on to the next bimbo to fill these shoes of Anna Nocole Smith and (for that matter) Dolly Parton!!; Reply to this comment


by joycewest February 9, 2007 3:59 PM EST: I can sympathize when serious news people bemoan "what it says about our culture" when cable news goes nuts over stories like this one. I would suggest we avoid cognitive dissonance by simply not referring to such stories as news, if we wish to define news as "information we need to be informed citizens of a democracy." These stories are gossip, defined by their personal, sensational or intimate nature. When earth-shattering gossip breaks out, as it often will in a world filled with troubled pageant queens, runaway brides and eccentric tycoons, cable TV "news" outlets should simply switch sets and anchors and go whole hog with a new concept: GOSSIP CENTRAL! (And it has to have an exclamation point -- maybe two or three.) "Our motto: We speculate, and so do you! And we bring it to you live! Do we know what happened? No, we don't, but we can interview somebody who might. Watch these paparazzi clips while we scare up an interview with a friend of a friend or maybe some psychiatrist."

Well, I guess that won't happen. Clearly I'm a troubled soul -- I can't reconcile in my mind cable TV's Jekyll and Hyde devotion to both high-minded journalism and the hot gossip of the day.; Reply to this comment


by memekiller February 9, 2007 3:17 PM EST: Frankly, I'd rather have you focus on Anna Nicole than running with a baseless rumor floated by a religious cult. I mean, Nicole is actually dead. You aren't spreading story you know to be false, as with Pelosi, and you aren't refusing to give the exulpatory information that would demonstrably show the story to be the fabricated piece of nonsense it is. So please, all Nicole, all the time, if that's the only story you're willing to verify and check sources on.

Also interesting how a few weeks ago you had a mea culpa to the wingers explaining why you hadn't laid into Pelosi yet. You reason given was not that you didn't have any dirt to air, but that there's a honeymoon period. No consideration was ever given to the possibility that Pelosi could be competent and clean. Airing dirt was just a matter of timing. So, not able to find anything substantive, it's no wonder you added your hot air to those echo chamber distortions.

If that's the level of reporting you do, then please, stay away from politics. This Nicole story does less damage to the nation.; Reply to this comment