The trend in amateur celebrity news blogs – Part 1

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Amateur celebrity news blogs have the potential to be more interesting than regular celebrity news sources, in part because the blogger is under less pressure to meet journalistic standards and can embroider the truth to make it more interesting.

Bloggers are less likely to be sued by a celebrity, so they can give more thorough coverage of sightings and scandals, and not worry about holding back when giving personal opinions of a celebrity’s behavior. Major celebrity news magazine, in contrast, have to keep at least a neutral relationship with the big names, or risk getting scooped if the celebrity refuses to work with them.

If you have ever tried to read a celebrity news magazine, you’ll know that they are essentially monthly photo collages. The magazines have loads of interesting pictures, but the writing, even the feature articles, have the depth and information of a photo caption. When the cover of a magazine reads, ‘Jennifer Spills All About Her Relationship with Brad!’ upon purchasing the magazine you’ll be disappointed to discover that the article has maybe one publicized comment from Jennifer, and a long description of her outfit along with a list of her career choices since the split. Not exactly news.

The magazine covers are often the most interesting and informative writing in the whole magazine. The one exception I’d make to this description is Vanity Fair. Vanity Fair is stylish and well written, and they push the envelope in celebrity reporting, giving readers if not a balanced representation, then at least an interesting angle to a well known personality.

You get a bit more from the feature interviews in women’s magazines. Good Housekeeping, Fitness Magazine, these usually feature a celebrity article about once every issue, in between recipe’s and ‘Dressing Slim for Summer’ articles. These interviews don’t tend to be wildly revealing, as the magazine is doing it’s simpering best to kiss up to the celebrity and maintain a good relationship with them for future purposes, but at least you’ll get the occasional revealing comment within the context of the interview.

Blogs have a lot more freedom to say what they think. The author of a blog isn’t worrying so much about making the celebrity look good so that they can keep them coming back to give interviews. Blogs are more honest because the writer of the blog is usually volunteering. They don’t stand to make money from their reporting, and that’s the best thing that can happen to news.

But they also don’t have stringent journalistic standards to live up to, so they might be feeding their readers some fibs. The upside of this is that it makes for a very entertaining read. As I said earlier, amateur celebrity news blogs have the potential to be a lot more interesting than more conventional celebrity news outlets.