So, I'm coming clean today: I have a guilty pleasure. At least twice a day, I go to a website known as TMZ. What is TMZ you ask? Well, allow me to bring you out from under your rock. TMZ is a site, founded by Harvey Levin (a former lawyer turned journalist), that covers celebrity notes, news, etc. Now TMZ isn't just your typical 'Guess who Ryan Reynolds had lunch with today' website (although there are a lot of stories like that...but I'll confess, I'm sometimes intrigued by exactly who Mr. Reynolds is having lunch with). TMZ can be a wealth of information for lots of different aspects of celebrity life and celebrity justice. For instance, TMZ was the first to report on the passing of Michael Jackson, the first to get info on the Ben Roethlisberger rape accusation, and almost always the first to know when a celebrity gets arrested for a DUI. There have even been several different occasions that I've seen where CNN and other national news sources have quoted and/or credited TMZ with the information that they've received on major news stories. Moreover, with his knowledge of the ins-and-outs of the justice system, Harvey Levin offers valuable insight into court cases that often can't be found in other places.
But, I end up confused on occasion as to why certain court cases end up being covered on TMZ.
Let me bring up 2 things that I'm confused about: The West Memphis 3, and Casey Anthony.
First, the West Memphis 3. For those not familiar with the case, they were accused back in 1993 of murdering 3 Boy Scouts, but maintained their innocence. The case of the West Memphis 3 had the attention of several celebrities, such as Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, that annoying chick from The Dixie Chicks, and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder. Recently, they turned in a plea of 'guilty' in exchange for their freedom. Here's my beef with it...TMZ is a celebrity news site. Why are they on there? It's only a notorious case because of the circumstances surrounding it. There's no 'celebrity-ness' to any of them, other than the fact that at one point, they were all accused of murdering and mutilating the bodies of 3 Boy Scouts. So I'm confused as to why this case got coverage on TMZ.
Second, Casey Anthony. Now, if you know nothing about Casey Anthony...please, please come out from under your rock (honestly, if somehow you don't know about at least part of the case...you're probably a hermit). During the Casey Anthony case, the TMZ page was covered with stories about the jury, the judge, the final decision, Casey's relationship with her parents, etc. BUT WHY? While people probably hate her as much if not more than they hate Lindsey Lohan, Casey Anthony IS NOT a celebrity. All she's done is, to put in honestly, make all of America severely doubt her innocence in the case. So why on earth is she on the TMZ page?
So, for both of these cases (and there are others as well, these 2 are the most recent) I'm just confused as to why they're on a news-page for CELEBRITY news. There's enough to talk about justice and such (with the Michael Jackson case (actual celebrity) and all of the rappers getting out of jail recently) to occupy the interested world for a while.
My suggestion: Create another news page for coverage of notorious trials. Harvey is a great legal mind, and it'd be nice to get his opinion on national-news cases (like the Anthony case and the West Memphis 3 case).
This way, I can see who Ryan Reynolds took out to lunch (Olivia Wilde most recently, in case you were wondering), but also have a separate place to look at news and analysis on legal cases (if I choose to do so).
