PressEthic

I couldn’t help watching Jennifer Aniston’s Oprah interview last Monday. Somewhere between the talk of her divorce from Brad Pitt and her current dating life, one comment she made was very disturbing. She admitted that she cried a lot when her and Pitt broke up. With a self-depreciating laugh she indicates that she does cry easily, but then she suddenly turned indignant and said that she did NOT burst into tears at the beginning of her Vanity Fair interview as the reporter described. I have not been able to find a copy of this magazine article, the new Paris Hilton issue of Vanity Fair having just been released, but I wonder why her complaint was reserved for an off-handed comment. Are celebrities so used to being misrepresented by the paparazzi that they are numbed to minor untruths printed in “serious” magazines? If the subjects don’t make the distinction, how can the public? When it comes to celebrity news, how can we tell what is true?