Was channel-surfing this morning and saw a promo for E!'s upcoming special regarding the Gosselins, featuring Ken Baker. Likely, it will be a cobbled together piece of something featuring the E! News clips of the smug brother of the woman that Jon was allegedly cheating with, but the thought of this 'special' makes me sick.
The fact that the Gosselins are still on tabloid covers is pretty ridiculous. And it serves as an additional reminder that the tabloids' bottomline supersede the possibility that any of the 8 Gosselin children could read these accusations at the local supermarket. I also have to wonder whether the number of children a family has is directly proportional to the outrageousness of the headlines regarding the large family's parents and the frequency of their tabloid appearances.
At any rate, I doubt the Gosselin children will see the E! special, but it still galls me that Ken Baker is at the helm of this special. Given that he was the subject of a sensational lawsuit which included a salacious tidbit about the nanny in charge of his children, you would think that he would extracate himself from this particular situation. But no... the gossipmongers never really take a closer look at themselves and their behaviors; and fortunately, their readers don't pay attention to that either.
Personally, I would love it for all tabloids and the entertainment shows that promote their crap would close shop, but that won't happen. And hoping for a retooling of the whole industry seems pretty far-fetched and unlikely as well; nevertheless, I do think that it's absolutely necessary. I think that men, because they are men, have more credibility despite the fact that they really don't have a nose for gossip and their tendency to get sloppily aggressive when they think that they've slighted or betrayed, as demonstrated by the Bakers, Casablancas, and the P. Hiltons of the business. And women in the game may have a sixth sense for smut, but they let their personal insecurities and grudges devolve into photo assumptions, body language assessments, and a level of viciousness that completely displaces anything resembling journalism.
Another help to this disparity is not employing failures, especially failures who have no background in journalism. Or college students, with no journalism background, but access to fan boards, or hater boards, who have no problem repeating libelous yarns that celebrities will not take legal action against. These college kids are not likely to become journalists and probably approach their jobs much like a telemarketers; dispassionate, yet persistant in their asspain tactics.
And finally, stop positioning these failures posing as journalists as recurrent guests or contributors to legitimate news outlets and entertainment shows, especially when their previous yarns were proven incorrect, inaccurate, reckless, and flat-out vindictive.
This isn't like weight loss, when it takes as much time to shed it as it did to gain it. A unilateral policy change by the legitimate news outlets could force the tabloids to rethink their current course, especially when their bottom continues to suffer.
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