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Posted by Kate Butler Jun 28, 2007 |
Like most celebrities, Paris Hilton has become accustomed to a culture that puts famous people on an incredible pedestal. She gets enormous media coverage wherever she goes, and can pretty much be guaranteed to be the topic of at least one gossip magazine a week. Of course, it's not just Paris that we see ad nausea in the media: Angelina’s latest pregnancy scare, Nicole Richie’s eating issues and Lindsay Lohan’s rehab problems are all equally given the royal treatment.
While many of us complain that the mainstream media has gone completely overboard in its’ toleration and promotion of celebrities and their behavior, we rarely see our complaints actually having an effect. This, however, is exactly what has happened in the aftermath of Paris-gate: NBC, a major news outlet, has decided to withdraw their offer of a $1 million interview deal with Ms. Hilton, presumably due to the outcry from the general public.
It was assumed by the major media outlets that there would be a big fight to get the first exclusive interview with Paris. ABC wanted Barbara Walters to do it, and CBS thought that they had a shot at it too. NBC considered themselves to be the winners, therefore, when they announced on the weekend that Meredith Vieira would be conducting this oh-so-important interview with the Hilton heiress, where Paris would receive a cool one million dollars for simply describing life on the inside.
What NBC did not expect, though, was that public outrage at this deal, and a general feeling of ambivalence toward Paris would create a situation where they had to revoke their offer (which they now claim was only a framework and so they did not officially cancel it).
Whichever way you slice this story, it’s clear that bloggers everywhere have a reason to pat themselves on the back today: the world was spared what would have been an insipid, inane interview with an obnoxious 20-something thanks to their angry rants.
Paris Hilton seems to believe that now that she is out of jail and ready to admit to anyone that will listen to her that she has truly changed, it is refreshing to see that in this case, the people still have the power.