It's just a case of bad timing.

It’s pretty sad when the media can get a hold of any story and twist around to fit their won viewpoint and mindset. Just like we learnt in class about cut lines and headlines, a picture should never be morphed to match the caption. Well when regular people or even celebrities begin to voice their opinions on media, suddenly the entire world has to stop and analyse each and every word that was said. We all know that there are many celebrities that help with charity functions, and voting campaigns.

Celebs do have an effect on the rest of the public because a lot of people tend to look up to celebrities and listen to their opinions with all ears because they are glamorous and receive a lot of attention. It’s a lot like advertising; companies should hire celebrities because they know that their product would be sold, especially if the celeb is very popular at the time.

When the Dixie Chicks were sponsored by Lipton, it was great for both because each of them were getting funding and extra attention. But when the Dixie Chicks were on tour they decided to voice their opinions about President Bush, at the time Bush was really popular in America, and they didn’t make the smartest choice. Natalie (lead singer) said that she was “ashamed that George W. Bush was from Texas”, and she said this when she was in England! So basically it wasn’t even in the same country, word did end up getting around though, and soon enough all of America was talking about what Natalie had “blurted out”. The public and media made it seem like it was the end of the world! I’m pretty sure she wasn’t the only one if the universe who thought that about George! I know I agreed with her point and I still do to this day, but it wouldn’t matter if I said that, it only mattered because she is a celebrity. When the group returned to the States they received a lot of negative attention from the media, their CD’s weren’t being bought, they lost their spot on the top 100 songs chart, and their music wasn’t even being played on the radio! This was a major turning point for the group considering they were so famous and one sentence had changed their entire lives. So after the media had ditched the Dixie Chicks completely, the President’s popularity lessened as well. Soon after the broken promises he offered for the country were realized for by the public, The Dixie Chicks were thrown back into the spotlight but this time they hit the stations with a good comeback song. “Not Ready To Make Nice” was telling a huge story about what Natalie felt about the entire situation, she even mentioned how her life was threatened by a random man just because of what she said. The song was pretty effective and people understood that they were not wrong to speak out after all. I think that the group did pretty well overall when it comes to how they handled the consequences, they didn’t show too much vulnerability but the same time they didn’t act like tough guys. I know I would have a harder time if the news entertainment industry gave me negative attention.



In that video “Is this a matter of free speech or bad manners?” is mentioned by a news reporter, I don’t think that it was bad manners necessarily but more like bad timing. I’m sure that there were parts of America that were ashamed of Bush at the time, but it just wasn’t talked about. Some people do take free speech too far though and it needs to stop, a lot of problems in the news world when it comes to that. I’d like to point out one newscaster in particular, Bill O’reilly. He is a very opinionated man but I think he needs to set that aside for his own entertainment; his job is to deliver a story not his full opinion on the current issue.

That’s were the news world does wrong, and spreads negativity, when a news caster is too biased and they let it show it will effect how the audience interprets the story as well. It is just as effective as when a celebrity does the same. I see it as a “Monkey see, monkey do” situation, since the rich and the famous are so influential, we have no choice but to let them take over our brains for at least a bit.



Kanye West took it a little too far there, it was really unexpected, and not even Mike Myers knew what to say! Kanye does have the rest of the black community supporting him and what not, but not at that moment did he receive any back up. I think that was a case of bad manners, just because this entire purpose of him being there was to spread awareness about the tragedy, not to start a fight.There is a time and place for everything.