COMMENTARY | In today’s fast-paced world of celebrity news and gossip, it seems yesterday’s headlines are easily forgotten today. This is due in large part to the entity that never sleeps, the Internet. The Internet has spawned a generation of people who live and breathe the minutest details of their favorite celebrities. They want to know the good, the bad and the ugly.
This leaves many questioning: Do celebrities deserve the media coverage they get?
The answer is simply “yes.” And it’s all a matter of demand. The people who are demanding to know the latest celebrity sleaze are the ones who pony up the cash to hear it. There are several popular sites on the Internet that cater to the millions of celebrity obsessed people around the world. Sites like TMZ.com rake in millions of viewers a month and make tons of revenue off their advertising. In addition, their TV show is syndicated across the United States. If people did not want this, they would not be paying for it.
The media are only covering what sells. The media business, like any other, has a bottom line, and they need to stay as far away from it as possible. But they are offering a valuable service to the community in which it serves.
When Charlie Sheen was in the midst of a nervous breakdown over the summer, the media were there every second. And it wasn’t just second rate celebrity media like TMZ or Perez Hilton. It was mainstream networks like NBC, CBS and CNN. Those networks brought us Sheen’s popular quotes — “Tiger blood” and “duh, winning.”
Mainstream media take a lot of flack about being to celebrity obsessed. But it’s the media’s job to deliver what the people are clamoring for. And the people are just not clamoring for political issues and greener ways to clean your home. They want to know the ins and out of the Kim Kardashian divorce. And luckily for them, the mainstream media are willing to give them what they want.