You can run, but you can’t hide — from Kim Kardashian, that is. She’s everywhere, famous for being a professional celebrity who’s never really “done” anything to speak of.
It’s a falling Star — and not because of media cross-currents eating away circulation — but because it keeps chronicling the likes of KK as an anointed queen of pop culture. Even the checkout-aisle crowd is weary of the over-exposed plump tart, who is getting attention simply because she’s expecting. Indeed, Star’s cover trumpets: “Kim Got Pregnant For $22 Million!” Sure she did, the story goes, and it says Kim’s also using her baby bump to cover up fraud allegations. Along the edge of the cover, thumbnails of celebrities reveal another four show-business scandals, e.g., tragic last words of a star’s suicide, cocaine woes, divorce crises and battles with a new beau. Back in the early days of Star, in the late 1970s and 1980s — it turns 40 next year — the tabloid thrived on the hard work of real reporters. Not anymore.
Leave it to Us Weekly to suck the life out of celebrity dishing. The celeb rag is a downright drag to read. That’s mostly because it fails to dig up real dirt or titillating tidbits that might merit a read during a wait in the doctor’s office. Instead, readers get bored by a tired array of silly photo spreads. One titled “Umbrella Holders” shows — yes, you guessed it — photos of George Clooney and Justin Timberlake holding umbrellas. One might conclude that this is some sort of inside joke if it weren’t for other equally vapid photo features, such as “Stars — They’re Just Like Us!” If that were the case, why buy the magazine? The longer features fall flat, particularly the one on Kardashian clan matriarch Kris Jenner. Another piece fails to reveal any of the promised “secrets” of the final three women vying for the affection of ABC’s reality show “The Bachelor” Sean Lowe.
Since when did InTouch morph from celebrity mag to reality rag? The mag’s cover is overly strewn with reality stars we never heard of, touting news on the “virgin” bachelor and the “booty wars” of the “Real Housewives of Atlanta.” (Seems one of the “RHOA” stars is claiming a co-star’s tushie is filled with silicon.) But while we’re sick of hearing about the queens of reality TV, the Kardashians, we must admit that the cover story is scandalously intriguing. According to InTouch, Kris is so desperate to stay on top that she’s started promoting her young teen daughters, Kendall and Kylie.
It turns out there is more to life than looking at stunning actresses wearing swanky gowns. You can always fixate on their pregnancies, as the baby bump issue of OK! does this week. Pregnancy and childbirth is not a new phenomenon, so there is really not much to say. Jennifer Aniston is pregnant and getting married, in that order. It isn’t even scandalous. Yawn.
People is not keeping up with the Kardashians. Mercifully, you won’t find Kim or her sisters on the cover this week. This edition leads with the suicide of Mindy McCready. It is hard to tell if People just took a different route than competitors as some kind of Kardashian protest. People has only one Kardashian photo, and it has nothing to do with pregnancy or divorce. Photos of Kim and other fashionable women are compared with styles worn by dogs at the Westminster Dog Show. It is a new inter-species take on “Who Wore It Best?”
You can imagine that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has no love for the New Yorker. The March 4 issue’s convincing cover story “What’s Wrong With The Republicans” makes the case, after spending time with him, that he is a big part of the problem since he feels the Republican product is still saleable. Another revealing feature describes how reporters at the Newtown Bee weekly had mixed feelings reporting on the national tragedy that gripped their town. BTW, New Yorker editors, even the Newtown Bee wouldn’t have seen the news value in the “Talk of the Town” piece about how Bruce Ratner loves the food at the Barclays Center.
New York’s feature story on gay divorce is neither shocking nor particularly interesting. After all, a great majority of gay couples, it admits in the piece, are still trying to get married, not untie the knot. Better in the content-starved issue is a feature on St. John’s former dean Cecilia Chang and how she justified stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Catholic university before committing suicide. Even David Bowie, who has released his first album in 10 years, might have a chuckle at New York’s three-page tribute to him. The hard-to-read feature says he was “always sincere with his insincerity.” Even Bowie would have be smirking over that one — see China Girl or Tin Machine.
Time’s ground-breaking cover story on “Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us” will make readers angry and could possibly change the way people think about hospitals. Reporter/Editor Steven Brill makes the case that even hospital CEOs do not know why hospitals charge multiples more for aspirin and gauze than patients could pay in a drug store. Time does not necessarily get to the bottom of why hospitals charge so much but it deserves much credit for highlighting the huge inefficiencies.
