The End of Paris Hilton

Posted by Amber Nasrulla Feb 28, 2007

There are some stories that are too delicious to ignore and this is definitely one of them. The New York Observer is reporting that esteemed wire service, Associated Press, is declaring itself a No Paris Zone. The NPZ refers, of course, to Paris Hilton.

According to the NYO story, AP’s entertainment editor,Jesse Washington, told staffers by email that “the print team is planning an unconventional experiment: We are NOT going to cover Paris Hilton.

“Barring any major, major news, we are not going to put a single word about Paris on the wire,” the memo continued. “If something does come up, big or small, we encourage discussions on whether we should write about it.”

The results of the NPZ will be fodder for a future AP story. “Hopefully we will be able to discuss what ‘news’ we missed,” as well as “the repercussions of our blackout for AP both editorially and business-wise, and most importantly the force that cause the world to be fixated on this person who, despite her shallow frivolity, represents an epochal development in our culture.”

Excited note from Amber: Oh my God, that is my favourite part of the memo!

Washington told the NYO he was inspired by the fact that, in the past year, Ms. Hilton has appeared on the AP wire about twice a week.

“We got lucky,” he said. “Totally by accident, her birthday party was the day before we started the experiment. There really weren’t any major news stories involving Paris, so we didn’t have that many really tough decisions to make.”

Now let’s see how long AP sticks to this resolution. For instance, if Hilton shaves her head and covers her body with tattoos like a circus freak, would AP cover it? If Hilton jumped out of a limo and ran nude down Sunset Blvd., would AP cover it? If Hilton got engaged to a billionaire’s son from Greece, sported an engagement ring the size of a robin’s egg, would AP cover it? Oh wait, that’s old news. Who even knows what constitutes news anymore.

I wish they would do the same for the neverending saga of the Anna Nicole Smith story.