As an aspiring journalist, nothing makes my skin crawl more than knowing that “celebrity journalism” is an actual thing. Journalism is about spreading news and communicating opinions, not spreading gossip and prying into people’s lives. Journalism is about making an impact on the world, not impacting into the personal business of the rich and famous.
Yet “celebrity journalism” is a popular form of news whether I like it or not. Looking at top selling magazines in America from several sources, tabloids always seem to be featured. People magazine never missed a top 10 list and sometimes even made rank above Time magazine.
Back when I finally decided I wanted to go into journalism, and never missed the chance to tell someone about it, a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to do “celebrity news or other stuff.”
It irritated me that her first thought was celebrities and that she grouped every other type of journalism, such as actual news, into “other stuff.” That’s not the first time someone has asked me that either.
Celebrity news isn’t news. It’s gossip. We seem to live in a celebrity obsessed society. We are bombarded with stories about what actress has gained weight and which model did cocaine.
The shelves at the checkout lines in grocery stores are cluttered with People, US Weekly and the utterly shameless National Enquirer.
I like to pretend that nobody actually buys that. Talk shows love to focus on celebrities. There are whole TV networks dedicated to gossiping.
The only type of news in relation to celebrities that I would read would be about their careers. I don’t mind reading about who is going to be in the new Les Miserables movie or how Mumford & Sons’ new album is selling. I don’t, however, care about Kristen Stewart having an affair or Miley Cyrus cutting her hair. The former is more like what I believe “entertainment news” is about. The latter is just gossip.
I think this dumbs down American media and gives it a bad name. I don’t understand why some people like to read about something so irrelevant. There are more important things in the world that need attention.
There are things a lot more newsworthy, such as researchers measuring the radius of a black hole. Celebrity “news” is a joke compared to that.
But this doesn’t just stop with writing or broadcasting. There are also the paparazzi. These are people who get paid to stalk celebrities. They get away with it under the guise of being affiliated with a news outlet. But really all they do is follow some poor person around while taking photos of every step they take, then they go see what gossip outlet will buy the photos from them.
I hate knowing these paparazzi people are running around with camera equipment I dream of owning and misusing it so distastefully.
Making a living off of literally stalking someone and discussing their personal business is just taking the lazy way out. Celebrity reporters are just people who couldn’t make it as real reporters.
It’s stressful on someone who wants to actually do something meaningful, someone who actually wants to put their skills to good use and help people understand things.
While those people work hard to make a living, other people are out there making thousands, sometimes millions, off of slander and being nosey.
I think people should stop concerning themselves so much with others. Unless that person is actually contributing something to society or is posing as a threat to me, I don’t care what they did last night. It’s not my business.
If someone knows more about what’s going on in Hollywood than in their own government then that really says something about their level of intelligence and maturity.
