Progressive Wednesday

The AP is “hot.”

If only we could all be as strong as the Associated Press:

The Associated Press decided to give up a major vice last week: its addiction to stories about Paris Hilton. In the past year, Hilton has appeared on the wire an average of twice a week.

The wire service’s entertainment editor Jesse Washington sent a memo to staffers on Feb. 13 that said, barring any major events, the AP would not run any mention of Paris Hilton on the wire.

Before Hilton, I thought that the person who’d made the most out of the least talent was Jimmy Buffett (I mean, I don’t even like margaritas). This section of the press should be applauded for erasing the name of the woman named after La Ville-lumière who shall not be named again here (at least after this post) any time soon.

The press, even the entertainment press, has an obligation to the culture, whether they like it or not. Thomas Jefferson put the importance of a strong and responsible press this way:

The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

More and more, I think Jefferson would replace “newspapers” with “citizen journalists,” but this move by the AP is, in all honesty, a step in the right direction.

So what should we do in response to this editorial decision? Why, send the AP an email at info@ap.org.

Feel free to copy and paste mine, which went like this:

Dear AP:

Thank you for pulling Paris Hilton from your wire reports. You’ve made Thomas Jefferson a little prouder, and Paris Hilton a little poutier — two good things that go good together.

Feeling French,

Matt Zambito

I simply couldn’t stomach a photo of Ms. Hilton, so I thank

this fine photographer for, you know, this hotter snapshot.