The trials and tribulations of Britney

A few days ago, BBC Online published this interesting piece about the media’s obsession with Britney Spears. In the article, video photographer Alex Passos says…

Everyone wants to know about her and that’s why it’s getting out of hand and dangerous now.

From the media’s point of view, Britney is big bucks. But surely the tabloids should leave the beleaguered star in peace so she can overcome her many problems? Does the media want to see Britney get better, though? Years ago she was a superstar but now she’s constantly depressed - and that massive fall from grace makes a very juicy story for newspapers in the UK and around the world. It will be interesting to see how much longer the media covers Britney’s woes.

Entertainment, entertainment, entertainment...

In The Editors blog, the BBC's Matthew Shaw has revealed details of a brand new entertainment show on News 24...

Our new programme E24 aims to be the brasher younger sister of the daily round-ups, looking back at the best of the week’s entertainment stories as well as giving a sneak peek at what’s to come.

He goes on to say…

We’ll treat entertainment and arts news in exactly the same way as any political or financial story - finding out the facts behind the fiction and giving an insight into how the business works. But of course we also want the programme to be fun.

A number of people have criticised the new programme…

Great, more entertainment on our televisions. As if we didn’t have enough already...

It's inevitable that some members of the public will be concerned that their licence fee is being spent on producing programmes concerning the latest entertainment news. But just like there are millions of people who are interested in Gordon Brown’s newest policy or David Cameron’s latest speech, there are millions of people who are interested in Britney Spears’ ongoing problems or Amy Winehouse’s never-ending drug addiction. News programmes have to appeal to a wide spectrum of people with different interests - and in this day and age of 24 hour rolling news then I think it can be justified that some prominence is given to entertainment news. I think we can all start worrying when we switch on the ten o’clock news and see Huw Edwards perched on the corner of the news desk with a bulletin full of celebrity tittle-tattle.