After some news organizations avoided reporting on Justin Bieber yesterday, Greta Van Susterenexplains why she covered the pop star’s arrest in a post on Gretawire:
Sure, there is a part of me that would like to take you all to a refugee camp in Sudan….or even to the Greta Home and Academy in Haiti, but I do that from time to time and frankly, people want more than my special interests. Viewers want a mixture of stories which varies from day to day, and they want to know what is going on now, right now, today. And guess what? Yesterday I paid attention to Justin Bieber stories, too. I plead guilty. I was interested in Justin Bieber.
Fortunately, there is enough time and space that we in the media can cover it all – some days it will be topics like Syria and other days it will be Justin Bieber or some other irresponsible or reckless celebrity. We have so many media outlets – many 24/7 cable news, broadcast news, websites, magazines, etc. – that you, the news consumer, are in the driver’s seat when it comes to what you want to follow. If you want to avoid any topic you can. If you want to follow any topic, you can.
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In other Bieber-related news: during the 3pmET hour, Brooke Baldwin apologized for a CNN banner that indicated Bieber’s blood alcohol content was .08% at the time of his arrest. Bieber’s actual BAC was under .08%, the legal limit for driving in Florida. (Since Bieber is under 21, however, the legal limit for him is .02%.)