It was a surprising turn of events on NBC, Sunday April 6, 2008. This prolonged Media Moment we were led to believe had been put to rest.
‘It’s NBC, Bitch’ might have been the title of this Dateline Episode, so apparently in need of ratings against CBS’s 60 Minutes that they resurrected the not yet cold history of what has been labeled the Britney Spears meltdown. No publicist could have prevented this story’s resurrection, no carefully pitched alternative would have worked. No high powered PR firm could have protected Spears from having her sad tale revisited—and rehashed.
She’d made the cover of TV Guide for her recent TV appearance on CBS’s How I Met Your Mother. This well-received performance left the more prurient entertainment shows to become part of the well-wishing masses that were thrilled to see her life being put back together again.
And yet, the very serious Dateline devoted an entire hour to clucking over the well-oiled media machine that had made a fortune off of her personal tragedy. Detail after detail they salaciously reiterated, every not so nuanced example of a privacy being very publicly violated. This PR nightmare was an unstoppable train wreck that every facet of the media participated in, twitting and teasing the public’s appetite for gossip and celebrity intrusion.
It seemed to be over, with other public figure’s private foibles the fodder of morning and late night exposes. The collective sigh of relief was almost audible. We’re just wondering why Dateline didn’t hear it.
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