Paris Hilton news ban by AP

In case you missed it, Associated Press recently carried out a one week total ban on reporting on Paris Hilton…

The sky is falling! But seriously, the modern form of our cult of celebrity is surely doing no one any favours. What I want to know is why, despite my deep dislike of Ms Hilton, I get that peculiar voyeuristic sense of desire meets disgust when I read about her on perezhilton. And why should I care about Britney’s various hair removal schemes? Why oh why oh why? Time to tear my own eyes out. But I do care, like the rest of us, and I so wish I didn’t care (I suspect also like the rest of us).

I get exactly the same feeling when I see roadkill, for what it’s worth.

I don’t fault journalists for reporting this stuff. After all, we all want to read it. The trick is somehow to figure out why we want to read it in the first place, and find a way to substitute this for something higher in vitamins and minerals. I’d love to see a neuro-imaging map of someones brain as they watched celebrities.

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