From the moment I realized that journalism was my perfect career field, I knew I wanted to pursue the arts and entertainment world. I have been obsessed with celebrity journalism since I started watching interviews with boy bands like One Direction and Five Seconds of Summer when I was in middle school. I always dreamed of being that interviewer or reporter getting the scoop on the private lives of Hollywood.
I feel like it is something everyone is interested in. No matter who you are or what you like there has to be some celebrity you're a fan of and would be interested in learning about their life. There has to be some sort of celebrity gossip everyone has taken part in or been invested in.
Kylie Jenner might be dating Timothee Chalamet, Millie Bobby Brown got engaged, Tiger Woods struggled at The Masters, Drake Bell has been reported as missing and endangered, and Prince Harry will attend King Charles' coronation, but his wife will not. And this is all just from the past week.
There is a part of this field for everyone's interests, no matter how niche.
That's the beauty of it.
I was excited to hear more about this kind of journalism when entering our third EOTO project of the semester, and I was not disappointed. I had never really thought of how celebrity journalism got started because you would have to think about those who were even considered the "first" celebrities. Thankfully, my questions were quickly answered through my classmates' presentation.
They traced celebrity journalism all the way back to one of the first presidential interviews ever conducted. The sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams, was interviewed by journalist Anne Newport Royall in 1817. At first, he refused to meet with a woman reporter because he didn't believe that she could handle interviewing a president.
Royall took matters into her own hands as and found out that Adams enjoyed a morning swim each day without clothes. Royall met the president once he got into the water, trapping him while she asked him her questions sitting on his clothes.
I really enjoyed learning the origins of this way of writing and made me appreciate celebrity journalism that much more.
The idea of celebrity journalism could even be traced back farther to London in the late 1700s. A writer by the name of James Boswell wrote many columns for the London Magazine under the pseudonym "the hypochondriac." He wrote about the town's happenings and gossip. This idea has been brought to life through the wildly popular Netflix series Bridgerton. I am not sure if I would categorize this as celebrity journalism since it was more local news, but still such an interesting concept.
The first "celebrity magazine" started in England in 1893. The Sketch was filled with gossip and news all about some of the most well-known "celebrities" in the country: the royal family. Celebrity gossip magazines didn't reach the States until Photoplay in 1911. This was America's first taste of the "inside" lives of those in the spotlight.
Here in 2023, there is now a world where the whereabouts of celebrities can be found at all times of the day, we can sometimes forget that celebrities are just people, who deserve peace and privacy. Although the media may idolize them and most reporting on the lives of the famous is done out of admiration, there is a line that is beginning to fade due to social media, which is something I think everyone could benefit from keeping in mind.
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