John North Editor & Publisher

America often is accused of being a celebrity-obsessed culture — and now we find out that this condition is, at least to some degree, pre-programmed.

I am referring to a leaked internal memorandum from Frank Baker, the Los Angeles assistant bureau chief of The Associated Press.

In the mid-January memo, Baker stated, “Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving Britney (Spears) is a big deal.”

Lou Ferrera, The AP’s managing editor for sports, entertainment and multi-media, defended Baker’s message by saying that the news service’s clients — more than 1,500 daily newspapers and thousands of other media outlets — are yearning for more photos and videos of celebrities.

“If you’re an editor in L.A. and Britney Spears is in your backyard, you want to know everything about that story,” Ferrera noted.

In the aftermath, other media outlets have had a field day poking fun at The AP over its new-found obsession for all things Britney.

“Not a good day for journalism as a discipline” is how a commenter on Romesko, a popular on-line site owned by the Poynter Institute, aptly put it.

This raises the question of whether the news media are creating the market for celebrity coverage, or simply responding to consumer demand.

Gossip about others seems to be innate in human nature. But trading tales about your neighbors or co-workers can come back around to bite you — sometimes in the form of a lawsuit.

Celebrities, however, who are built up as larger than life, can be kicked around the water cooler with impunity. In these otherwise touchy times, there seems to be no consequence and anything goes in dishing the dirt on celebs.

Publicity and the paparazzi go with the territory of being a denizen of the red-carpet set. Certainly, celebrities, by definition, court publicity. Trouble is, they want to have their cake and control it, too.
Perhaps that’s understandable, since it seems celebrity tends to devours its subjects. For instance, the public seems to be obsessed with Britney because she acts so crazy — but is she acting crazy because we’re so obsessed with her?

Another example is the normally self-possessed Julia Roberts chasing down a photographer who supposedly was staking out her children at school.

Beyond the Britney issue, The AP is indisputably focusing more on celebrity coverage than in the past. I think the press is plainly pandering to insatiable public demand. After all, the media are businesses — and they don’t make money by simply entertaining themselves.

In our dumbing-down society, the public increasingly chooses shallow info-tainment over in-depth hard news and, for the most part, the media merely give it what it wants.