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Today, The Miami Herald, a newspaper that has won 20 Pulitzer Prizes in its history for covering things such as voter fraud, the Haiti earthquake and U.S. Iran-Contra affair, took to its Twitter to publicly congratulate Kim Kardashian, a basic cable reality television star who rocketed to fame after starring in a sex tape with Brandy’s brother, on her engagement to a player for the New Jersey Nets.
It’s been hard for every paper trying to transition into the wild word of the web, but it seems especially hard for papers, ravaged by seemingly never ending staff cuts, crashing local economies, and declining ad dollars. You know, those papers that seem to have lost any sense of unified identity or purpose. Which leads to things like sending out congratulatory Tweets to a Kardashian. The Herald’s only other tweets today are about a controversy surrounding a Venezuelan oil company, our governor’s poll numbers and the Casey Anthony trial.
Granted, we wrote about Lindsay Lohan’s tits twice the week but at least we showed no shame (don’t kiss us on the mouth when we’re pageview prostituting please), so maybe we can’t judge.
Of course, people love to read about this shit, and who are we, these haughty journalists, to hold ours nose up at what people actually want to read, but do you really want the paper that is supposed to be the journalistic standard-bearer for a major American city congratulating a Kardashian on its Twitter?
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Or maybe, other newspapers are just being rude. The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal have yet to send their congratulations.
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