The Hot Blog

Jeez, DP...she was kind of a waste of a human being, but she was still a human being.

I think the Anna Nicole story could be made into something as bizarrely intriguing as Boogie Nights twenty years from now.

Yes, J-Mc... a person bent on self-destruction from early on, goaded on by the very media that is now sucking blood from her corpse to build further popularity.

The only tragedy here is that we are paying attention. If we did not, she would likely be alive today.

Then you shouldn't have posted about it. You're the media too.

Yes, J-Mc. But I have a choice. Say something about what is going on or shut up and just pretend it doesn't matter. There is some degree of unavoidable hypocrisy in either choice and I have to deal with that every day. I have made my choice. And as was inevitable, you have taken offense.

I am only thankful that I didn't write about being against killing everyone in Los Angeles or you might feel compelled to go out and buy an automatic weapon.

And as is also inevitable, your choice was to jump on an opportunity to put yourself on a high horse and criticize mainstream media.

You're damn right I take offense. You're part of the problem, not part of the solution.

By the way, DP, your insistence on pigeonholing me is insulting. I haven't criticized anything you've written in weeks.

And if I suggested they were doing the right thing, no doubt you would accuse me of kissing the ass of the status quo.

So what's the solution, J-Mc? Please enlighten us with an actual idea of your own.

I agree completely with what DP is driving at. Yes, it's tragic that she's dead. But it doesn't deserve wall to wall coverage on CNN.

As you might remember, yesterday a helicopter got shot down in Iraq, the government is worried insurgents are gaining access to better weapons and the country is breaking into civil war....perhaps Wolf (formerly) Blitzkrieger might want to re-examine how he got his namesake in the first place and do some real reporting.

DP, only an idiot would agree that they were 'doing the right thing'. Give me a frickin break.

My problem with your statement has absolutely nothing to do with what you said (you're right! does that make you happy?) and everything to do with how you said it: specifically, the immediacy, anger, and self-righteousness of your post.

51 minutes, J-Mc.

Step up or step off.

P.S. Maybe Eric. But I suspect it would be more like an updated version of Network than anything of any depth in her life.

DP, don't understand your 1:39 post. Stop watching CNN if it makes you so upset. All week long you've been saying 'nothing matters, zzz, nobody cares' and _this_ is what gets you riled up?

Does "step up or step off" mean the same thing as "either you're with me or you're with Wolf Blitzer"?

Gah!

Wow...dare I say it...I actually agree with jeffmcm...guess there's a first for everything.

DP...love you, love this site...but sometimes you do criticize the media for doing actually the same thing that you do. If you don't think the media should jump all over this then maybe you should'nt post a headline on your blog saying, "ANNA NICOLE SMITH IS DEAD." You can't criticize the media about writing about it, AND WRITE ABOUT IT YOURSELF. Why even post her death here? Last I checked this was called MOVIEcitynews. Anna Nicole was alot of things, but a movie star, she was not.

DP, I think you are right at least 90% of the time...but sometimes you do need to step away and really think about it for a moment.

Glamourboy, off topic, but why say 'first for everything' when today is the first time I have ever seen your name here?

Sorry, Glamourboy... over an hour of wall-to-wall coverage on CNN is not equivalent in any way to me pointing the issue out on this blog, which is not MovieCityNews, but The Hot Blog. Her death is not on the cover of MCN and will not be.

And honestly, the fact that you are making that leap is exactly why I am so upset. I am not CNN. I am not The New York Times. And my choice to question whether this is worthy of, now, 70 straight minutes of coverage on CNN, is not equal to CNN giving it 70 straight minutes of coverage. Being withing a country mile of arguing equivalence is exactly why CNN just went 72 minutes without going to break... or now, after all that time, promo-ing the latest threat by Iran.... but now they pulled the go-to-commercial music and they are back to ANS coverage...

But most of all, I am not the issue. And I am forever amazed when you guys make me the issue. I am interested in what you think about the issue. And if what you think, Glamourboy, is that you don't care and would rather not see this on the blog, fine. But now, at 75 minutes, I think this is a real issue.

2:07 and you keep updating us.

It's not just CNN--ALL the news networks are covering this idiocy non-stop! The only good thing is that at least it ended the wall-to-wall coverage of that dumbass "astronaut love triangle." Meanwhile, Bush could be invading Austria right now and we'd never know about it!

DP, you like to think you're above it all, but you are the issue much more often that you would like to believe. THis is not a subject that is going to get a lot of varying opinions - do you really expect someone to come in and say 'well, I'm really interested in Anna Nicole so I think they're doing the right thing"? If you wanted this purely to be about the news coverage, you would have phrased things differently.

President Ford was old, and died a normal death.

Smith was still somewhat young, and the death cause was unknown. It made everyone around me perk up, and that had nothing to do with the amount of coverage. They all had taken an immediate interest, and CNN is giving the viewers what they wish to see reported.

The "kid in an urban school who didn't have a good breakfast this morning" line is the same bullshit "who cares about dead troops, people die in car accidents all the time" reasoning. Caring for one person or even just paying attention doesn't make me stop caring or forgetting about others. Give us us some fucking credit.

"symbolic about all that we seem to be losing in cultural standards"? This is no worse than when Marylin Monroe kicked the bucket, and has twice as much intrigue.

"Meanwhile, Bush could be invading Austria right now and we'd never know about it!"

Bullshit hyperbole.

I'm 1000% with DP here. Late last week our government decided to throw billions more at Iraq and then this week said there will be no debate on the issue because "The Decider" has spoken. THAT'S un-constitutional. THAT'S news.

Some coked up hooker dying isn't. Smith is no Marilyn Monroe, she's no National treasure. I mean, yeah, she was a human being and I thought she was hot, but she slipped into self parody YEARS ago. I think it's pathetic this makes headlines.

It's like when Jeff Tweedy of Wilco checked into rehab. That made the ticker on all the news stations. Yet the fact that the guy is an amazing songwriter never even blipped on their map. Priorities are out of whack.

Okay, I was wrong when I said nobody would defend the coverage. Never mind about that.

Tofu, when Marilyn Monroe died she was one of the world's biggest movie stars, and had been entangled with the President and the Attorney General of the U.S. along with various mobsters. Anna Nicole Smith was a failure at everything she did in life. She wasn't even a successful golddigger! The two are not in the same league.

What we need to be talking about isn't 'the media are whores for showing this much coverage', which is DP's premise, we need to be talking about what's wrong with our society that there is this kind of demand for tawdry garbage when there are legitimate news stories going unreported.

"Got a hot one, chief. Jeff Tweedy, the guy from Wilco? He's a good song writer!"

"Great Caesar's ghost! HOLD PAGE ONE!"

Monroe wasn't a freaking National Treasure by any means, and yet she is still paraded around left and right. Governmental news is important as hell, true, but there is plenty of time for all the news to make it's rounds.

"Got a hot one, chief. Jeff Tweedy, the guy from Wilco? He's a good song writer!"

"Great Caesar's ghost! HOLD PAGE ONE!"

I apologize DP. Every time Tofu posts it makes your point even more apparent.

"Caring for one person or even just paying attention doesn't make me stop caring or forgetting about others."

Tofu - That is true of YOU, as an individual.

It is not true about CNN as a news organization.

And I think a lot of the push back on an issue like this is that people see it all as somewhat equivalent, which I do not.

The only nets that seem to be covering this right now are FoxNews and MSNBC. I have no idea if they have gone 100 minutes without breaks or commercials.

But for CNN, this is an extraordinary event. Happens maybe 10 times a year. And they are handling it as they are to compete with FoxNews, not because it is editorially important. And that is where we are. If you don’t care that CNN has been reduced to this, so be it. If you wouldn’t mind Liz Smith in the New York Times, so be it.

Paddy Cheyefsky is laughing in his grave.

Having a chick who was famous simply for showing skin fraternize with the President and the Attorney General of the U.S. is far more "symbolic about all that we seem to be losing in cultural standards" than news coverage everyone is tuning in to actually watch.

You must not have seen any of her movies. She was the biggest star in the world and a very good actress, if not all the time.

The equivlant to Monroe death would be if Nicole Kidman was found dead in the White House Rose Garden with buckshot in her face.

jeff "I apologize DP. Every time Tofu posts it makes your point even more apparent."

Hahaha! Listen, I'm not saying that is uninterrupted coverage isn't over the top, I'm saying the story just hit, it has intrigue, and it will filter out like a bad Micheal Jackson story all the same.

I don't see a problem with DP criticizing the coverage. It's not exactly a profound observation, but it is another example of the deterioration of mainstream media. This is DP's blog and he can feel free to rant about it.

As for Smith, she was obviously a publicity whore, but to me that only makes it sadder. She was to be pitied, not hated.

It's now 2:45 LA time, and all three networks are still flogging this without even breaking for commercials. Unfuckingbelievable.

I blame 9/11.

But do you think it merits the hour-long non-stop coverage, which was DP's eventual point? And on a day when we have movement in the North Korea nuclear weapons front, progress in the Palestinian almost-civil-war, and I heard there are American troops somewhere in the Middle East?

That was to Tofu.

"The equivlant to Monroe death would be if Nicole Kidman was found dead in the White House Rose Garden with buckshot in her face."

That would supersede any coverage we could even hope to comprehend. Monroe's death, granted, would be more like if Angelina Jolie was offed today. However, the pedestal she is still held up to is quite surprising to many of us.

Can anyone honestly think of a recent death with this age span, this amount of odd happenings, and this amount of ridiculous news coverage that came before?

Reagan?

I simply disagree that this is a "deterioration of mainstream media" as stated above. It isn't anything new in the sense that the media has been doing this for decades, and this particular story has all forms of coverage breaking in the last hour.

I'll be banging my head against the wall with the rest of you when they are still beating the horse for the weeks following.

For the record, Cad, none of the broadcast nets on my satellite feed, including local channels, is covering.

Yeah, more like the seven days of Reagan. Getting any news other than the stiff in the casket that week was tough.

Isn't it "Step up or step on"? I mean, you're quoting the Gordon Lightfoot song ("Baby, Step Back"), right?

Sorry, Dave, I meant all three NEWS networks: CNN, MSNBC and Fox. They're still at it, BTW, as is (at this moment at least) Headline News.

It also stands to test that this is the last news item of the business day. It broke officially just before four o'clock. The East Coast is done, the news items from around the globe have already been covered in the morning, and everything with the government was covered after noon and one, as usual.

So it looks like Fox & CNN are moving back through the motions. That was around two hours of real coverage, with a few stops. The sky, I contend, is not falling, and this is just another day with the news nets.

Sure enough, the main six o'clock news hours rolls around, and CNN & Fox get back to normal international reporting with Iraq & Iran leading the headlines, just as everyone expects when they tune in.

MSNBC is simply leading with Smith, thus providing the standard variety people expect when they channel surf news networks.

Reagan off course wasn't in the same age span, and honestly hadn't been in the news recently. After the death, there was honestly little to no news to break. It was questionable if CNN and the like should have hovered over the casket (as it was up for public viewing) for hours on end as they had. Nothing was to be revealed with that coverage, and it wasn't even being used as an informational retrospective.

I can't speak for CNN, but I did see Fox take a break our two during those two hours.

I'm eager to see how Olbermann covers the story -- and the coverage of the story -- on Countdown tonight.

But see again, Tofu, Reagan actually _did things_ in his life. ANS was famous for being famous (and young, blonde, and hot, or at least formerly so).

Part of the problem is the very creation of 24 hour news networks. If a news channel needs to run 24/7, then they need to have something to program. They need to sell advertising etc.

So, instead of getting news that has been dissected and filtered and deemed most important, we now get much news that is just there to fill space and entertain.

Yet even I am stupefied at the Anna Nicole Smith coverage. She should be a blurb at best.

It is a testament to how entertainment oriented journalists themselves have become. It's too easy to just blame 'the culture' or 'corporations'.

Journalists and editors make decisions about what to report. Sadly too many people go into modern journalism for the 'celebrity' factor just like the entertainment industry. I've met far too many journos who are not really complex thinkers but just see the news as another way of being on TV. Another way to get that one hour 'Oprah' show.

I remember reading a survey back in the mid nineties that asked journalism students why they went to journalism school. The survey mentioned that where responses in previous generations had to do with answers like 'reporting to the public' or 'public service' etc, modern students gave lofty answers such as 'I want to change the world' or 'I want to help people'.

Sounds cute...but that's not what journalism is and that activist attitude by default makes the journalist the focus...not the story. Hence we start to get more journos looking for stardom and the blurring between hard news and entertainment gets worse.

This is not the fault of Fox news or other cable networks. It is also the fault of the poorer quality of people going into journalism school to begin with.

A friend of mine was in a journalism class recently where the students were asked who their favourite author was. For what seemed like minutes, no hands went up, he said. Then one lone student raised his hand and offered who his favourite author was...Dan Brown.

Very true, jeff. However, when Reagan was gone... Well, that was pretty much the end of the story. We saw a little on Nancy, and then the plans for the funeral and... Well that was all that needed to be reported. Cue the retrospectives.

With ANS, we have a possible murder. We have a police investigation here. We have people a giant fortune hanging in the balance. We have two men (one who might be the murderer, and the murderer of the son previous) fighting over rights to the five months old daughter. Just yesterday we had a judge order ANS to prove via DNA that the daughter was even her own.

So the ongoing coverage can't be seen as surprising. Incorrect and not worthwhile? Of course. However, this is not a mark on any new developments in our culture to the least.

Nicol, I don't see the connection between 'activist attitude' and 'looking for stardom'. Those do not flow into each other.

Nicol, the one counter-point I have there is that the classical six o'clock news is still available as it always was, and that it was treated today just it has been for years. The same block that had to compress and report all the worthwhile news still exists, and gets far more viewers than any 24/7 channel.

BTW: Guess what Nightline has just announced will be its top story tonight? No, I'm not making this up.

Tofu, all of that you say at 3:36 is interesting enough, but none of it is _news_. It's tabloid fodder.

I've been confusing Nightline with Entertainment Tonight lately with all the Oscar coverage they've been dumping.

My point about Tweedy was....why is it news that he's in rehab when by the networks standards, he never merited news before. How often did CNN talk about Anna Nicole? This all is a MAJOR headline for E! and Perezhilton.com...but with all the crap in the world and here in the U.S., it certainly doesn't merit 2 hours of coverage with no break. Pathetic.

The best part was watching E! create some half-assed ticker to scroll across the screen. Priceless.

The fact that her death has generated the most comment The Hot Blog has enjoyed in a long time clearly shows why CNN devotes much of its airtime to it. Why are you guys bitching? They're just giving what the audience wants.

The whole point of a NEWS network is that they don't give an audience 'what it wants' but report important things that are going on whether people want to hear them or not.

By the way, DP, since I was hard on you earlier, I should say that merely by comparing posting interests, you're still head and shoulders above a certain Eddie Murphy-obsessed competitor of yours.

News of her death is a type of news nonetheless. While it may not be important to you, it apparently is important to many people who don't care if a train explodes in some country whose name they cannot pronounce. Last time I checked, Fox News doesn't have a good reputation but it's the most popular and it's laughing all the way to the bank.

Why isn't anyone discussing the real news of the day?

Borat 2: Kazak Boogaloo!

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/va/20070208/117099211000.html

I'm not convinced that Anna Nicole's death is any different from Princess Diana's. You want to say who gives a damn, but then you see the entire world is rapt over the tragic death of a woman who was nothing but a celebrity.

Though I don't see Elton John doing Candle in the Cleevage...but stranger things have happened.

I love that we say "we'll never talk about this again" and then it's the longest comment thread of the month...we're all suckers for a good story, and whatever she's not, Anna Nicole always does/did make for some fun/ny stories...

waterbucket...is it *really* news or is the fact that every news network is endlessly talking about it make it news? If one does it, do you really think any other network is brave enough to say "this is stupid, lets cover the astronaut thing more" or...whatever.

I remember when Dawson's Creek came out and the media blitz said "James Van Der Beek is THE next big star" and I literally saw 7 magazine covers that said that. Certainly didn't make it real, but they were all on the same page with it.

Larry king has Chyna on to talk about Anna...it's very insightful

Fox News is laughing all the way to the bank, but (and this was DP's eventual point) American society is getting poorer, more insular, and literally stupider as a result.

OK, since no one else will ask this question, I'll be the one to piss off everybody: How is Anna Nicole Smith's death any less "newsworthy" than the Oscars? I mean, seriously: In the long run, how will the outcome of the Best Picture race really affect YOUR life (assuming, of course, you are not actually involved in the production, distribution or exhibition of the Oscar winner)? It's ALL bread and circuses, folks. And meanwhile, dozens of men and women my son's age (and younger) are getting killed every month in Iraq. Don't get me wrong: I'm not dissing anyone who obsesses over Oscars. But I don't see where that's any different than obsessing over the death of a semi-celebrity.

Well, I should say shining the spotlight on a great contributor to charities, and also on the more refined arts of the year are better ventures for the mind.

Still, twelve minutes into coverage, and Mr. Poland is calling it the loss of cultural standards. Yikes.

I don't think it is much less worthy than a given day of Oscar coverage, Joe. But Oscar coverage doesn't ever stop CNN for 2 straight hours.

And Tofu... it played out even worse than I expected. 12 minutes in, it was already grotesque. Two hours in, in the context of the network, it was scandalous. And I honestly would not be surprised to see someone fired over this given the brushback from Lou Dobbs and the reserve shown in the first half hour of the next hour on CNN.

I find in these discussions that many of you forget that these things don't just happen. The two hours with no breaks was a major editorial choice. The following 90 minutes with no mentions was also. No, Joe, it's not life and death... unless you work at CNN.

As I wrote, I don't care if Paula Zahn bends over the desk for junk like this. She has, essentially, an entertainment show and if I want to argue against that, this night of coverage is only one incident. Same with Larry King. But 4:48pm eastern to 7p eastern of what is normally hard news subsumed by this... sorry... it's a major moment that will be remembered for years to come in that newsroom.

"I'm not convinced that Anna Nicole's death is any different from Princess Diana's. You want to say who gives a damn, but then you see the entire world is rapt over the tragic death of a woman who was nothing but a celebrity."

No. NO. Nooo. untrue

In Africa or Asia tell me Anna Nicole's 'impact' was the same as Diana's. Of course you have not worked there (I did) or you couldn't say that.

ANS death is no sadder for people who cared about her, but her societal impact on disenfranchised people or fundraising for their concerns was near Nil.

I worked in Africa and Diana made a big difference WITH her celebrity and money as Angelina is doing so now. It is sad that a white celebrity has to be interested in a troubled part of the world for Americans to take notice, but unfortunatly it does matter... Americans are now doing more for other parts of the world which is balancing those Americans who are only interested in gun trading & drug running.

Actually, this sort of discussion is raised every time the cable news networks go non-stop and wall-to-wall on any breaking story, whether it be a Kenndy dying in a plane crash or a C-Lister dying in a hotel casino. And while I am reluctant to defend such wretched excess, there's something you have to remember: At any given moment during the marathon coverage, people are turning on their sets for this first time because a friend called them with the news, or they heard about it on the radio, or they saw something on line -- and they want to see and hear about it NOW. Not later. RIGHT NOW. You may be sick of it because you've heard nothing else for the last 20 miutes (or two hours), but trust me: Even as you are cursing at the TV, hundreds (maybe thousands) of people are tuning in AT THAT VERY SECOND. I know that sounds like a lame excuse -- but that's at least part of the logic at work here.

Well, you said it, Joe: a lame excuse.
I think the difference between Anna Nicole's death and the Academy Awards is simple: regardless of what you think of the attendant hype and bad decision-making of the Academy, their purpose is still the culmination of a year of art and entertainment. Anna Nicole Smith was a person who became famous for no good reason, with no particular talent or skill. Her death should be less than the dot on the end of a footnote.

Twenty bucks says that Howard K Stern lawyer/lover all round scum bag sells footage of ANS shooting junk into her labia within a week.

The chick was complete uber skank granted but she was also as captivating as Steven Seagal misfiring with an environmental speech.

She was no Mansfield but she could suck a golf ball thru 40yards of garden hose and act circles around Nicole Eggerts younger sister. So she was golden in my book.

Tears didn't come like when my boy the croc hunter bit some ray tail but I felt we'd all lost something special. Special as in special needs.

The saturation coverage is an embarrassment to all media but its naive to get up in arms about it.... it's like no one saw paris scarfin nightvision cock.

May Stern rot in hell.

"I'm not convinced that Anna Nicole's death is any different from Princess Diana's. You want to say who gives a damn, but then you see the entire world is rapt over the tragic death of a woman who was nothing but a celebrity."

That is truly one of the dumbest things I've read in a long time. Princess Diana > Anna Nicole Smith. They're not even on the same plain. How ignorent and obnoxious.

On the issue at hand, I agree with Dave on one hand. Continuous coverage of ANS's death is crazy absurd. It doesn't even warrent the use of a news bar down the bottom of the screen. But, I also see what people like Jeff were saying.

But, there's just the pure simple fact that people (certain people that is, not everyone) were fascinated by Anna Nicole. She was a pop culture joke, but when her son died there was legitimate sympathy for the woman, and now with her own death it's like watching somebody's life, quite literally, collapse. Although, if nothing else, she's getting what she wanted - attention. And lot's of it!

On the subject of an Anna Nicole movie. I'd suggest the movie studio (not sure which one) just rerelease Fosse's Star 80. Do some redubbing and get Marial Hemmingway to film some new scenes and it'll be like having The Anna Nicole Story.

The Anna Nicole-Princess Diana is pretty funny cause when I heard earlier that she had died, I asked the person who told me (as a joke) if The Queen had expressed her opinion yet or if flags were being flown at half mast. I'm not sure if as big a deal was made about the deaths of John Belushi, JOhn Candy or Chris Farley and at least they had some talent for making us laugh (though they did it deliberately)... what does Anna Nicole offer? NADA.

BTW, it's been a couple hours since I've watched the news... is Anna Nicole still dead? Thanks for any information.

"what does Anna Nicole offer? NADA."

Untrue.

For a brief time, she offered a sexual fantasy; and for a longer time, she offered comedic material. Leno and Letterman should probably have had a moment of silence for all of the support she unwittingly lent to them and their shows.

It would have been nice for the news networks NOT to give her death unbroken coverage for hours on end, but then again, when you add up all of the coverage of her disasterous life, it's actually what the public richly deserves. If they don't like it, then they should stop making these sad people demi-gods while they're alive.

And to learn a lesson from all of this, all coverage of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan should cease today.

FAT CHANCE.

Well, you can say she made a lasting impact on our country's legal system. She won her case in the U.S. Supreme Court.

While I diagree with JBD's phrasing, he is correct that Stern is culpable in her death. If he had really cared for her, he would've forced her into rehab years ago; instead, he enabled her massive drug/alcohol consumption and unhealthy life-style for the sake of the short money, and she was too stupid to realize what was happening. I know there's no way he's legally at fault, but if there is a God, he'll be roasting in Hell very soon.

How about the paternity drama? Who's the real daddy? This is going to be very very messy, especially with the 3rd man in. Info about daddys here: http://www.anna-nicole-dies.com/dannielynn_smith_father.php

there's a freakin' website called anna-nicole-dies.com? Now that's just rotten.

And, again, people seem to be forgetting the reason a lot of people "care" (in the sense that you care for someone you didn't like) is because her life was so crazy. All she wanted was to be rich and famous. And with the death of her son recently, there was a "she's human after all" tag, which makes her own death strangely fascinating to people.

She's not a demi-god or whatever. She's just a person that caught people's attention who was in the headlines. If some of these old people mentioned were still routinely making headlines then they would get extra attention.

It's like how people can't figure out how popcorn movies can be successful even when they're utter trash.

You'll love this mashup on the latest News Spasm of the day. It reminds me of that famous Alka-Seltzer commercial . . .

"I can't believe I ate the wholllle thing!"

I had a Guess picture of her in my locker during grade ten...so if she'd died then, that picture may be framed today. ;)

From an LA Times article on the media and ANS's death;

"Of course, one of the cheapest journalistic tricks going is to get a piece of a mindless, tawdry media frenzy by denouncing it. The writer gets to wallow profitably in whatever gutter has everybody's attention while still being wry and high-minded. The readers get to join the fun without losing their self-respect. It's a win-win sort of arrangement for a certain knowing-wink-and-sly-nod wing of the media culture."

http://tinyurl.com/2kbmqn

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