Читать книгу Confessions of a Showbiz Reporter - Holly Forrest - Страница 5

Kim Kardashian

Justin Bieber

Miley Cyrus

Rihanna

Lindsay Lohan

Katy Perry

Selena Gomez

Jennifer Aniston

Nicki Minaj

Taylor Swift

These ten people are basically my bread and butter.

In my time as a showbiz reporter, the biggest change I’ve seen is just how much we rely on these internet searches. The web might have started out as a geek’s playground in the nineties, but it’s now entirely mainstream – and it’s my biggest outlet. I write stories that go up on it, I research celebs that I’m interviewing with it and I buy things from ASOS through it when I’ve got an event to attend. Like it is for many people, the internet is part of my job’s daily routine.

In my line of work, though, the internet has achieved a fairly unique breakthrough: it has given you more power. You’re my boss. True, someone needs to write features about these stars in the first place, but once they’re online, it’s up to you who you search for. Just look at the first two names for proof. Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber became global brands purely through the power of the internet; fans latched on to their appeal way before us in the press. I’m not sure the people watching grainy footage of Kim getting it on with her boyfriend were the same as those watching a 12-year-old Justin singing R’n’B on YouTube, but the principle is the same. The media can still do a lot to fuel a showbiz fire, but more now than ever, what’s hot is often out of our hands. With a largely free internet at our fingertips, the celebrity world is more accessible than ever before.

So after I’ve done my bit – writing and researching articles, interviewing celebrities, attending junkets – it’s over to you. Who you spend your time looking up determines who we spend our time focusing on. If you resent that eminent scientists and liberal thinkers are missing from the list, start searching for a few and maybe we’ll have to take notice. But that’s the great thing about modern media: it’s no longer so full of snobby journalists hiding out in their ivory towers, bleating about what they fancy and taking no notice of their audience. The internet’s too transparent for that. These days, we’re all in this showbiz world together.

And what a world it is …