Blonde Journalism 1 Introduction When Two Blonde Bombshells from Hollywood Found Themselves in Trouble, They Also Found Themselv
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Blonde Journalism 1 Introduction When two blonde bombshells from Hollywood found themselves in trouble, they also found themselves in the newspaper. In the 1920s and ‘30s, comedienne Thelma Todd captured America’s attention not only with her numerous Hollywood films, but also with her bitter divorce and highly publicized death threats from a male stalker.1 Decades later, Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith stole headlines with her scandalous marriage to a billionaire 63 years her senior and the contentious paternity battle over her newborn daughter.2 By the time both reached age 30, their triumphs and tragedies were as much on-stage as they were, spread all over the media for the world to see. Because their lives were fodder for everyday news, their mysterious, tragic deaths created media frenzy. Newspapers relished coverage of Ms. Todd’s death, December 16, 1935. Three well-respected newspapers – The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution – covered the actress’s death throughout their papers during the week following. The opportunity for using the sensationalistic style of yellow journalism was intoxicating, and editors for the three newspapers in 1935 lapped it up – some more than others – knowing the juicy celebrity mystery would not fail to attract readers. Nearly 72 years later, a similar media frenzy occurred when Anna Nicole Smith died on February 7, 2007. As their newspaper counterparts did seven decades earlier, television news shows, from NBC’s “Dateline” to Fox News to CNN, jumped on the gossipy story with around-the-clock, dramatic, graphics-filled coverage – in short, employing the yellow-journalism techniques of Ms. Todd’s day. In contrast, however, the 1 “Dead Actress Won Fame After Start as Teacher,” Los Angeles Times, 17 December 1935, sec. A, p. 10. 2 Abby Goodnough & Margalit Fox, “Anna Nicole Smith Is Found Dead at a Florida Hotel,” The New York Times, 9 February 2007, sec. A, p. 1. Blonde Journalism 2 three newspapers mentioned above – which had reveled in Ms. Todd’s juicy story – this time were sober and more controlled.3 The New York Times, L.A. Times, and The Journal-Constitution had been sensationalistic in the Todd era but had changed direction by the Smith era. Despite the similar qualities possessed by both women – age, appearance, involvement in scandalous situations – and the mysterious nature of their premature deaths – both died before the age of 40 – The New York Times, L.A. Times, and The Journal-Constitution (known in Ms. Todd’s day as The Atlanta Constitution) chose to report on the deaths very differently. Based on their coverage of the two deaths, it is clear each newspaper matured, mostly turning away from the yellow journalism techniques during the 72 years between Ms. Todd and Ms. Smith’s tragic ends. Literature Review Fans were captivated by the story of Thelma Todd’s mysterious death, but no scholar has examined the media’s portrayal of her possible murder. One book hinted at media coverage of Ms. Todd’s death. In his 1989 book, Hot Toddy, Andy Edmonds examined clues that led him to believe Ms. Todd was murdered, possibly by a friend or ex-lover. Although he examined accounts detailed in newspapers of the period, Edmonds did not draw any conclusions about the coverage of Ms. Todd’s death.4 Despite the television media frenzy surrounding Anna Nicole Smith’s death, the media’s coverage of her 2007 death has yet to be examined by scholars, perhaps because the incident is too fresh. Two books regarding Ms. Smith’s life, however, have been 3 James Rainey, “Smith’s Death a ‘Real Feast’ for the Media,” Los Angeles Times, 10 February 2007, sec. C, p. 1. 4Andy Edmonds, Hot Toddy (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1989). Blonde Journalism 3 published: Train Wreck: The Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith and Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death. MSNBC journalist Rita Cosby, who interviewed the people in Ms. Smith’s life and offered theories about her death, wrote Blonde Ambition. Although Cosby discussed Ms. Smith’s life in the tabloid spotlight, she did not make any conclusions about the media’s coverage of her death.5 Similarly, Train Wreck author Donna Hogan rushed to the presses to publish a memoir about Ms. Smith and to theorize about her death, but did not examine media coverage of Ms. Smith’s passing.6 Other authors have extensively scrutinized the media’s coverage of crime and celebrity news in general. In his 1998 book, Scooped!, former crime reporter David Krajicek explained how the sensationalism of celebrity crimes has led news media to ignore the collapse of the criminal justice system in America. Krajicek wagged a finger at those promoting and reading celebrity crime coverage, writing: An information conveyor heaped with deviance, death, moral decay, adulterous ministers, pedophilic priests, and Texas cheerleader moms feeds a gaping media maw that has proved to have an insatiable appetite for the violent, the sexy, and the salacious…Murder and sexual indiscretions are the marquee offenses, of course, and certain cases, generally based on nobility or celebrity, are anointed for extravagant coverage.”7 In stark contrast to Scooped!, history professor Charles Ponce de Leon focused on the impact celebrity journalism has had on the making of celebrities in his 2002 book, Self Exposure: Human-Interest Journalism and the Emergence of Celebrity in America 1890- 1940. Through his examination of media-made celebrities throughout recent history, 5 Rita Cosby, Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2007). 6 Donna Hogan, Train Wreck: The Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith (San Francisco, Calif.: Phoenix Books, 2007). 7 David Krajicek, Scooped! (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). The quoted material is from page 4. Blonde Journalism 4 from Charles Lindbergh to Monica Lewinsky, Ponce de Leon concluded modern-day celebrities could not exist without the media. He wrote, “By virtue of their ability to make public figures visible and familiar to millions of people who have never encountered them in the flesh, it is the news media that literally create celebrities.”8 Another scholar, John Stevens, wrote about the sensationalism of crime stories in the 1920s. Stevens found the 1920s newspapers to be among the most eager to publicize celebrity news in history, alongside James Gordon Bennett’s penny press journalism and the yellow journalism of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. He wrote, “During the 1920s, the new tabloid newspapers were streaked with yellow, and the magazine stands were as replete with crime and romance as the movie houses.”9 Thelma Todd’s career and public life were repeatedly spotlighted in newspapers from the 1920s and ‘30s, but Stevens did not discuss Ms. Todd or her death in his article. Two journal articles examined celebrity crime coverage as it relates to its audience. A 2006 article by Serena Carpenter, Stephen Lacy, and Frederick Fico questioned what frames television networks used in 2004 to present celebrity news. Researchers concluded more celebrity crime stories were broadcast during morning news shows than evening shows, because these stories appeal to a low- and middle-class demographic.10 Maria Elizabeth Grabe made a similar argument 10 years earlier in her article, “Tabloid and Traditional Television News Magazine Crime Stories: Crime Lessons and Reaffirmation of Social Class Distinctions.” Grabe concluded celebrity 8 Charles Ponce de Leon, Self Exposure: Human-Interest Journalism and the Emergence of Celebrity in America 1890-1940 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2002). The quoted material is from page 5. 9 John Stevens, “Social Utility of Sensational News: Murder and Divorce in the 1920’s,” Journalism Quarterly 62 (1985): 53-58. The quoted material is from page 53. 10 Serena Carpenter, Stephen Lacy, and Frederick Fico, “Network News Coverage of High-Profile Crimes During 2004: A Study of Source Use and Reporter Context,” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 83 (2006): 901-16. Blonde Journalism 5 crime reporting caters to a lower-class demographic than hard news reporting.11 Although both articles provided insight into who might read celebrity crime stories, neither focused on celebrity crime reporting relevant to this study. While a plethora of information exists regarding individual aspects of this study, including the subjects themselves and celebrity and crime reporting, in general there is a clear need to tie these subjects together. Researchers such as Stevens and Krajicek have established a connection between deteriorating news value and celebrity sensationalism, but failed to note the timeline of this deterioration. Therefore, this paper will investigate how coverage of a celebrity murder mystery in 1935 compared with and contrasted from coverage of a similar incident by the same newspapers in 2007. Does the light coverage of Ms. Smith’s 2007 death contrasted by the heavy coverage of Ms. Todd’s 1935 death point to a decline in yellow journalism tactics used by the three major U.S. newspapers in the study? Method In order to draw conclusions about the coverage of both deaths in The New York Times, The Journal-Constitution, and the L.A Times, the researcher looked at every edition of each newspaper in the one week following the women’s deaths. Thelma Todd died on December 16, 1935, so the research covered articles published from December 17 through December 24.The researcher examined the same three newspapers from the week following Anna Nicole Smith’s death on February 17, 2007. Thus, newspapers in the study ran from February 8 through February 15. The New York Times and L.A. Times were chosen because they are the leading newspapers in the U.S.