Paris Hilton's Special Treatment Is Media Manipulated

ABOVE PHOTO-Paris Hilton Mug Shot, From Reuters
The media has spent the last several years, maybe even decades, inventing stories from whole cloth, and in some cases out of thin air. All it takes is a dash of celebrity, hopefully surrounded by at least a minimal amount of talent, and if the so-called star in question has a self-destructive personality so much the better. If the person is an alcoholic or a drug addict, has seemingly endless relationship or marital problems, and is in the habit of making stupid or offensive statements or participating in questionable activities, the media cannot seem to get enough of it.

Therefore, when Paris Hilton ended up receiving a jail sentence in Los Angeles County for driving under the influence, after several preceding arrests for similar offenses, you might expect it would be one of the top stories of the day. You could certainly expect no less from the likes of the National Enquirer, the Star, and other such tabloids, but it no longer stops there. Along came such entities as Entertainment Tonight, Extra, and even The Today Show and Good Morning America got into the act. When such network programs as these, along with The View and other network morning programs, involve themselves in this style of fluff journalism, you start to wonder just how long it can last.

Then, however, you get into such venues as CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, and suddenly you realize this and similar stories about other such celebrity personalities have indeed become an American obsession. At the same time, it is easy to see that it is a media driven obsession. No sooner does one hourly news program feature a segment on the life and times of Paris in LA lock-up, than the following program repeats the same story almost verbatim, in an endless cycle.

Now of course it is time for the next chapter. There is now outrage over the sentence of Paris Hilton, commuted by the Sheriff of Los Angeles County from a jail sentence to house arrest. This is hailed as an example of how the rich and famous are afforded “special treatment”.

In ordinary cases of this type, I would tend to agree, but not in this case, for the simple fact I think this is a manufactured controversy from start to finish. Sure, when Paris Hilton, being a reckless and controversial celebrity society figure, is arrested for DUI and sentenced to time in jail, it is certainly news.

On the other hand, isn’t the inordinate amount of pres coverage given this affair a little much, even extreme? Imagine how it would be if you were an employee of the Los Angeles County Jail, and you went to work every day only to be greeted by a constant barrage of reporters and photographers, asking the same inane questions, shooting pictures, harassing officials and employees of the system as they go to and from their daily jobs. Asking the same questions that they have been told repeatedly they aren’t allowed to answer, in a great many cases.

Then, there is doubtless the constant barrage of phone calls, asking for interviews, shouting out the same questions that were answered or not outside over the last week, questions from reporters that represent not just the seedier tabloids, but allegedly respectable news organizations as well. It would be more than enough to bring the already beleaguered and understaffed county’s official business to an all but complete standstill.

So what else could the sheriff do? True enough, Paris Hilton should have served the same amount of time as anyone else convicted of her crime. On the other hand, most other people do not warrant so much inordinate press coverage that it threatens the day-to-day operations of the city. That same media that is now very disingenuously raising the issue of unfair treatment of the rich is actually the ones who are responsible for this travesty. Their hypocrisy is astounding, to say the least.

So why does the public not call them on this crap? How dare they bitch and moan about Paris Hilton’s allegedly light sentence and treatment, when they manipulated the entire sorry sequence of events from start to finish? Of course, she got off easy, but it is their fault, and they fucking know it. If they have not figured that out, it sure as hell does not say much for their reporting skills. Of course they know it.

Nevertheless, you can still count on them beating the drum of class struggle with Paris Hilton cast in the role of the modern day Marie Antoinette, or maybe Imelda Marcos. It will not be too long before someone, with their wholehearted encouragement, will be accusing the sheriff or some other county official of taking bribes. Anything, you see, to ratchet up the rhetoric and sell the story.

If you ever needed a reason to wonder why so many Americans not only mistrust, but also even hate the media-both the allegedly liberal and the conservative sides of it-you need look no further than this blatantly manipulative hypocrisy.

UPDATE-Turns out that, according to this report Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer specified in his sentencing of Hilton that she was not to be given home incarceration, but was to serve the entirety of her 45 day sentence at the Lynwood lock-up of Los Angeles County. For violating this order, Sheriff Lee Baca may, in fact, be open to charges of contempt, according to County Attorney Rocky Delgadillo.

So what does that tell you? That tells me that conditions within the jail were unbearable, not only for Hilton, but for the staff, thanks mainly to the media, no doubt.

Moreover, according to Leonard Levine, who has worked many such cases, early release for people convicted of such offenses as Hilton's is not unusual, regardless of their income or social status, especially during periods of overcrowding within the jail system.

So much for Hilton getting special treatment. Nevertheless, she is scheduled to reappear in court tomorrow, at which point she very possibly could be made to spend the remainder of her time at Lynwood, as previously ordered.

The three ring circus just got extended for an extra engagement. In my opinion, Hilton should think about suing precisely for getting special treatment, only not in the way in which it is being portrayed. If anything, here the opposite would seem to be the case.