How to Do Celebrity Journalism Good
Imagine that you are a journalist, tasked with crafting a true, powerful, and insightful piece of writing about a well known celebrity that can puncture their veil of false mystique. Here is how it’s done.
For purposes of illustrating “how it’s done” (journalism), we will use this USA Today story about Jaden Smith, published today.
1. Headline: Make sure it is a balanced and skeptical account of the cult of celebrity and its pitfalls.
Jaden Smith is helping to save the planet, one water bottle at a time
2. The intro: Reveal to readers the profound lack of substance behind the flash and shine of the Hollywood lifestyle.
Jaden Smith, Get Down actor, musician, fashion prodigy, like-no-one’s-watching dancer, is also a conservationist.
3. Use their words against them: Skillfully quote the subject’s own words in a way that goes beneath the surface to reveal the self-loathing nature of the celebrity lifestyle, and the secret yearning of these superstars for a life of meaning, which they may never find while trapped in their bubble of wealth and unearned prestige.
“My name is Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, and the way that I like to give back to the world is through the environment, because the way that the earth is going now... it is taking us to a breaking point where we almost might not be able to survive,” he said at the Variety Power of Young Hollywood event, where he was one of the honorees.
4. Wield the power of bearing witness: Though celebrities and their handlers may spew endless smokescreens of words and images designed expressly into tricking the gullible public into buying into the hollow plastic dream of fame and fortune, a journalist is able to use their own two eyes, combined with professional reporting, to puncture the bubble of propaganda and serve readers a steaming helping of truth.
“The plastic, that’s the issue,” Smith said Tuesday night. “I want to create a bottle of water that is made from renewable resources, that is not made from plastic, that you don’t need fracking, that you don’t need petroleum, that you don’t need to go to war for this bottle of water,” he said, showing off what looked like a prototype.
5. Expose hypocrisy with factual research: Hollywood will do anything to keep its dirty, hypocritical practices in the closet. By comparing what celebrities have done in the past to what they say now, a journalist can expose the gaping, empty maw that sits where a human soul is supposed to be.
Making a sustainable water bottle seems a fitting cause for Smith, who has been photographed drinking jugs of water, and recently tweeted a gem about saving the world earlier this week.
And that’s how it’s done, folks.