Britney Spears. Yeah, her again. Many readers responded to last week's column in which I asked them whether they agreed with me that The Bee was going overboard with almost daily coverage of the wayward pop singer's much-chronicled life.
The answer was a resounding and weary "yes."
One reader called it "The Bee's juvenile obsession" that makes Sacramentans look like "celebrity-crazed hicks." Another, who expected better from the paper, described it as an example of "journalistic laziness."
"Celebrity insanity" was one reader's term for it, while another said simply, "You ARE the problem."
A subscriber asked whether anyone had ever complained to me about a lack of Spears coverage or, for that matter, lobbied for more.
The answer: never.
And the comments went on and on. You can read many of them for yourself online at the Public Editor's forum at www.sacbee.com/public.
But one response in particular surprised me.
It was from David Little, editor of the Chico Enterprise-Record.
Breaking from the media herd, he's done what no other newspaper in America to my knowledge has, and that's declared his 32,000-circulation daily a "Britney-Free Zone."
You read that right.
Since Jan. 20, the Chico paper has had no mention of the troubled pop diva.
The moratorium is to last one month, until this coming Wednesday, but Little says he's considering extending it.
You're probably wondering how many negative reader complaints the paper has received.
The answer: zero.
The readers who have responded, says Little, have thanked the paper for the Spears blackout. Little wrote about his decision in a column published Jan. 20 and which you can read at www.chicoer.com/columnists.
Here is some of what he said:
"We're tired of the train wreck. This is a woman with two young kids who are chased around by photographers as if that's normal.
"This is a woman who seems to have mental health issues, shall we say. We'd never make light of a local citizen with the same problems, yet it's somehow OK because Britney's a has-been star?
"We don't write about child-custody cases either, but Britney's family fight is somehow elevated to newsworthiness?
"This is beyond pathetic. The woman needs to be left alone, for her sake as well as her children's. If the media circus quits trailing her, maybe she'll get help. Maybe she won't. Maybe it's none of our business.
"Will it make a difference if one newspaper in little ol' Chico quits running news about Britney Spears? Not one whit.
"But it will make me feel better. It will make me feel a little less disgusted with my lifetime profession."
And in conclusion, he said:
"If Britney wants to move to Chico, she should. We won't write about it. If she wants to dance sans panties on the bar at the Madison Bear Garden, by all means, have at it. We won't send a photographer.
"Britney needs a rest, and so do the rest of us."
In a telephone interview, Little said with a laugh, "We're not out of business yet."
There were a couple of times in the last month when dramatic turns in the Spears saga made for attractive fodder in the mainstream and tabloid media.
The paper ignored them. He wondered whether readers would complain. None did.
Spears news is so pervasive – on the Web, on TV, in magazines, in newspapers – that readers who are really interested, Little said, "can find it anywhere they want it."
This is the kind of coverage Little's readers are missing:
In Thursday's Bee, the Spears' dispatch was headlined "More on Britney." The story opens with this line, "In a disquieting revelation that would be shocking if fully accurate … "
Say, what? What kind of fractured journalism is that?
Is the paper now in the business of dispensing news it acknowledges may not be correct?
Have standards about accuracy and fairness changed because it's celebrity news?
If so, I missed the memo.
The short story on Page A2 goes on to recount how Spears' first husband told In Touch Weekly – (In Touch Weekly? You've got to be kidding!) – that she "doesn't want to be a full-time mom."
That's it. That's the extent of it.
If it's true, of course, though we're not really sure.
Up there in beautiful Chico, readers of the Enterprise-Record face no such quandaries about what to believe.
Even so, Little said, not everything connected to the paper is Spears free.
The paper's Web site has an automatic Associated Press news feed.
As we now know, the wire service's assistant bureau chief in Los Angeles sent out a memo to his staff in January that said, "Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving Britney is a big deal."
Hence, when AP moves a story about her, it pops up on the Enterprise-Record's Web site.
Little is under no illusions about what he's doing. His actions have gone unnoticed in the nation's press and he knows, as he said in an e-mail, "that we haven't exactly started a trend in the business."
But I think his self-described "one little step" is admirable and a sign of independence from the group-think media herd.
Down here in the big city, when it comes to news about Spears, we've learned how to say "Moo."
The Public Editor deals with complaints and concerns about The Sacramento Bee's content. His opinions are his own. You can contact the Public Editor by mail at P.O. Box 15779, Sacramento, CA 95852; or by calling him directly at (916) 321-1250.
