RIP Journalism in Arizona

This is a rant...go ahead and skip this one...

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post on the decline of investigative jounalism in Metro Phoenix.

I should have dropped the 'investigative' part. Journalism is dying here.

First, in April, the Arizona Republic published an article on one of Scottsdale's spoiled princesses and how her family is conspiring to buy her some fame. MTV aided when it recorded and aired the girl's $150,000 16th birthday party. The Republic abetted by wasting newsprint documenting the whole thing. (I'm not naming the girl here because this post isn't about her, it's about the impending demise of serious journalism here. If you're curious, her name is in the AZRep article.)

Then yesterday, The East Valley Tribune had a BIG feature in its Get Out section on the party life of another EV princess, Daisy Earnhardt (granddaughter of car dealer Tex Earnhardt). A serious journalistic enterprise (not the Trib, obviously) could have published the same article in two sentences: "Beautiful rich people like to party. When they drink, they get drunk like the rest of us."

This doesn't even qualify as 'entertainment' journalism (the purpose of Get Out!); Ms. Earnhardt isn't an entertainer - not a singer, dancer, actor, writer, etc. She works for her grandfather's business. To be sure, she's beautiful, educated (ASU grad), and seems to be a decent human being.

How does that rate a puff piece? Did the business promise to buy more ad space in the paper in exchange for the article? Why????

More importantly....

Why did trees have to die for these examples of faux journalism????