Monday, June 28, 2010

When news just isn't news...

News broke today on the CNN Marquee Blog that 90210's Tori Spelling got in contact with Farrah Fawcett's ghost during a psychic reading with John Edward. During a recent interview with Out Magazine, Spelling accepted Edward's invitation for a reading because she was hopeful to get in contact with her father Aaron Spelling's spirit. Instead, Farrah's spirit came through with information for Tori to give her son Redmond. The rest of the tale is chronicled in Spelling's upcoming book "Uncharted TerriTORI." How timely!

In another blog, Celebitchy, the story was approached much the way a tabloid magazine would with additional photos and gossip.

These two blogs provide examples of different approaches to celebrity news reporting. Tori's ghostly encounter is hardly news-worthy yet somehow it landed on the front page of CNN. In terms of credibility, the CNN post appears to be more trustworthy due to the reputation of CNN reporting and the overall appearance of the page. Since the Celebitchy blog gathers its news from outside sources, the information is less credible. Additionally, the overall aesthetic of the Celebitchy page is amateurish and littered with advertisements.



3 comments:

  1. You are totally right--why is this what we see on the Marque on websites? Its ridiculous (and really funny) to realize that with all this crazy news in the world, all most people really want is the "who's seen who's ghost?" or "which naked cowgirl came first?" (yeah, I almost chose that one just because it was funny), but really? I think we may just feel better about our sanity after reading something like this :)

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  2. Agreed with Jessica. This definitely isn't news! What the heck?! We are much to enthralled with the lives of celebrities (I admit, I'm a victim of it too) and it really makes you wonder, have we lost all hope for valuing things that are TRULY newsworthy? For valuing anything beyond just a surface level?

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  3. I agree with MCK. We are too much enthralled with celebrities, but it's so addicting. I guess a news source like CNN has to cover all issues even the not so newsworthy. I kinda like that I can go to one site and read hard news like the oil spill, or confirmation hearing, then a few clicks later I can read about ghosts.

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