Celebrity News Craze: Celebrity fan site promotes media objectivity

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Celebrity fan site promotes media objectivity

In 2007, Aphrodite Jones published a book examining media bias in the reportage of Michael Jackson's 2005 trial. Her book, Michael Jackson Conspiracy, is now scheduled to be published in France under the title, Le Complot Contre Michael Jackson.

During the trial, many of Michael Jackson's fans complained that the media were not reporting about the trial with fairness or with an unbiased professionalism.

In the time since Jones's book was published in the United States, some of the independent fan sites dedicated to Michael Jackson have counteracted their perception of a bias in the media against Jackson by supporting Jones's book.

In the case of one fan site, Elusive Shadow has diversified itself away from the traditional fare of a celebrity fan site (photographs, message boards, celebrity biographical information) and has taken up the cause of professionalism in journalism in the form of promoting the French publication of Le Complot Contre Michael Jackson.

This is one example of how independent websites can report "news" that acts to balance what the mainstream media reports as news.

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Media Bias in the United States

According to Wikipedia, this is how we can think of media bias:

Media bias in the United States is the description of systematically non-uniform selection or coverage of news stories in the United States media. Claims of bias in the media include claims of liberal bias, conservative bias, claims of mainstream bias, and claims of corporate bias. There are a variety of watchdog groups that attempt to find the facts behind both biased reporting and unfounded claims of bias, and research about media bias is a subject of systematic scholarship in a variety of disciplines.

What can independent website publishers and bloggers do that the mainstream media can't?

In an interesting blog post on Daily Kos, a blogger acknowledges the sensibility that is emerging about critics of the mainstream media: that there is a valid role for bloggers and independent website publishers in reporting the news.

This blog will aim to add to that conversation from the perspective of other bloggers and independent website publishers.

Where I'm starting out is from the perspective of society's and the media's shared obession with celebrities. How does this focus on celebrities blur our concentration of other subjects?

Disclosures

I am a registered Democrat, and I have long had an interest in the media.

I've read a lot about a bias in the media lately revolving around the U.S. Democratic Party's primary campaign. But even before this, I was lucky to have worked for the journalist Aphrodite Jones, who wrote a book about media bias. Although I will rely on that book to give some context to this blog, I hope the scope of this blog can encompass a larger conversation about fairness and accuracy in the media.

Thank you for visiting Celebrity Media Craze.