In many ways, watching the cable news coverage Friday of “Hilton TV” was like spotting a car wreck in the opposite lane. It was impossible to look away.
The media looked more infantile than Paris Hilton. The broadcast networks seemed to be the only adults around, for the most part downplaying the reality show star’s forced return to jail by a Superior Court judge in Los Angeles after a day of house arrest.
On ABC’s “World News” Friday, anchor Charles Gibson gave Hilton what she deserved — about 15 seconds explaining the bizarre happenings. NBC’s “Nightly News with Brian Williams,” which ignored Hilton’s release Thursday, gave in and gave her about two minutes Friday.
Of course, you can’t expect cable news to practice restraint. Its coverage — unintentionally funny when it wasn’t intentionally funny — could have been a “Saturday Night Live” skit.
Fox News had the least restraint and the best comic material. When a car driving Hilton passed an outdoor circus, anchor Shepard Smith said the circus had passed the circus.
Hilton, who has been a “Saturday Night Live” host, had to be thankful the satiric program is on hiatus. Her pathetic declaration in court, “Mom! Mom! It’s not right,” would have been ripe for satire on the latenight program.
It was ripe for ABC latenight host Jimmy Kimmel, who cleverly said in his monologue Friday night that the Hilton experience was the best-ever episode of Ashton Kutcher’s reality show, “Punk’d.” Kimmel’s show included an appearance by the strange celebrity lover who made a mockery of everything Friday by making noises as he stood behind a court employee explaining what happened inside the court. Kimmel also aired one of the day’s most unintentionally comic moments — when a few cable news channels made their questionable priorities obvious by briefly interrupting Hilton TV to say Gen. Peter Pace had been dropped as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
NBC’s Conan O’Brien changed the title of a famous prison movie and declared the entire Hilton affair “Raw Skank Redemption.” The late-night shows should have a feast with Hilton and her loss of bathroom privacy in jail that will last beyond her sentence.
A statement her lawyer released Saturday that quoted Hilton as saying she is “learning and growing from this experience” and was “shocked” by all the attention she was getting when there were more important things to cover was a laughable public relations attempt at damage control. The publicists who consider the statement “a good career move” are insulting the intelligence of the public. Just like cable news.
But at least Hilton has Geraldo on her side. Rivera, who often defends the less privileged like Hilton (OK, I’m kidding), was outraged on Fox News that she was in the slammer at all. CNN’s Nancy Grace wasn’t as sympathetic. What a shocker.
As much fun as watching the Hilton TV coverage was, it also eventually revealed that the media hadn’t done a very good job explaining what the normal punishment would have been for someone guilty of Hilton’s DUI and two subsequent offenses.
Law professor Stan Goldman, who has been around since the O.J. Simpson case, and a couple of famous Los Angeles defense attorneys noted that Hilton was in jail for something that would have locked up very few Southern Californians. They also explained that Lee Baca, the Los Angeles sheriff who released her without getting the judge’s permission, actually was being tougher on her by extending her sentence via house arrest.
Under L.A. law, the legal experts explained those guilty of Hilton’s offenses would have been out after serving 10 percent of their sentences. In Hilton’s case, that would have been close to the time she served. One expert also explained that Baca could have waited a day and released her under the 10 percent practice and Hilton could have avoided house arrest.
If the media had better explained how long Hilton likely would serve before being released, the public outcry over upper-class advantages and the circus her abrupt freedom created might have been avoided.
But let’s look at the bright side. Perhaps Hilton has been scared straight and she won’t get behind a wheel after drinking and cause a real car wreck that might ruin lives. Perhaps her cries of “mom” will scare some people her age who might get behind the wheel after having a few too many. Perhaps cable news media will learn a lesson about restraint and punish her and other celebrities in a way that will really hurt them — by ignoring them.
No comments:
Post a Comment