The Mank Blog
by Josh Mankiewicz, Dateline correspondent
This will be Paris Hilton’s eighth night behind bars, probably the most-discussed jail term ever.
Monday on “The View,” Barbara Walters talked about the phone call she received from Hilton, who’s in the medical ward of the L.A. County jail.
Harvey Levin, TMZ.com: She’s doing better. She’s adjusting to it. She’s still fragile. But I think, just psychologically, from what I’m hearing, she’s not this ping pong ball anymore. She knows she’s going to be at this facility for awhile.
Last week, Harvey Levin’s TMZ.com was reporting Hilton was disintegrating under the pressures of incarceration...saying she’d become sullen, withdrawn...a train wreck....and being visited by her psychiatrist.
That set up last Friday’s tug-of-war between a sheriff who sent her to home detention and a judge who wanted this Hilton back in the crossbar hotel.
What’s also astonishing about this case is not just the attention it has received, but the venom it’s generated. Browse any Internet board—you’ll find a legion of posters wishing Ms. Hilton a long, unpleasant stay in the hands of the law.
It’s not just the blogosphere—one Web site is selling “Paris Go Away” T-shirts.
And while she’s a familiar target in the late-night cross hairs, the huge audience reaction to any mention of her plight is so enthusiastic, it’s become predictable.
Why do people care so much about her fate? CONTINUED >>
by Josh Mankiewicz, Dateline correspondent
Don Imus is gone. But will the kind of language that got him fired disappear with him? Don’t bet on it. Rap and hip-hop artists routinely use many of those same words -- and worse -- all while depicting women as little more than sex partners.
Shock radio is alive and well. Howard stern’s contract is worth $500 million. .
And more than a week after the debate started over where funny ends and offensive begins, comedians at the Comedy Union in Los Angeles were finding that line—and erasing it. So is Imus’ firing the end of this debate? Or just the beginning?
Jasmyne Cannick writes and blogs about racial and civil rights issues. And about the long running battle by black Americans against degrading themes in music and popular culture.
Jasmyne Cannick: It’s easy to go after the Imuses. The challenge now is to go after the people in your own community. There’s not a day that I get up and get in my car that I don’t pass by someone who is blaring lyrics of “ho,” b- words, n-words. Often times it’s African-American women who are listening to these lyrics as well.
CONTINUED >>
by Josh Mankiewicz, Dateline correspondent
What do you get when you mix Mentos and diet coke?
What do you get when you eat a live praying mantis?
What do you get when you put on a rabbit suit and stage a bunch of fist fights?
The answer’s the same for all of them. What you get is an explosion of e-lebrity. In other words, you become famous....on the Internet.
Chances are, if you have access to a computer, you recognize one or all of these. Maybe you were the first to click on one of them. More likely, someone told you about it, or sent it to you.
CONTINUED >>
All across the country millions of innocent wives are caught in a love triangle, battling for their husband's attention with the players of their favorite sports teams. Now, in a "Dateline" hidden camera challenge, the wives are fighting back by catching their unknowing husbands on videotape while they watch a game. Josh Mankiewicz travels from coast to coast to report in, "Honey, You're on Hidden Camera," airing on Sunday, March 18, 7 p.m.
For the hour-long report, "Dateline" isolated some of the most rabid football fans in the country and got their wives to go head to head against football for their husbands' attention. The wives allowed "Dateline" to set up hidden cameras and microphones in their homes and then worked with "Dateline" to devise ways to distract their husbands while they watched the games. Some of the most revealing moments captured on tape: CONTINUED >>
by Josh Mankiewicz, Dateline Correspondent
Barack Obama and John McCain have several things in common. They’re both U.S. senators, they’re both running for president, and now they’ve both had to apologize for saying the same thing.
What they both said was that the lives of the more than 3,100 U.S. troops lost in the Iraq war were wasted.
Both had to quickly pull back and say that’s not really what they meant.
Well, it’s pretty clear to me that that is exactly what they meant. CONTINUED >>
by Josh Mankiewicz
This week, two strange soap operas attracted an audience of millions. On TV, on the Internet, and in print, the sagas played out. And depending on how you see all this, you can choose your own storyline -- women gone wrong, women done wrong, or girls gone wild.
Singer Britney Spears, more than accustomed to headlines for her sexy onstage persona, found her image publicly deep-fried for behavior that could only be described as very troubling. CONTINUED >>
