This column first appeared on Huffington Post.com. Comments not included here.
by Beth Arnold
Esquire has joined the ranks of The National Enquirer, or better yet, The Sun in publishing their "reported fiction" piece about the last days of Heath Ledger. Reported fiction -- what's that? In this particular instance, it's Esquire highlighting itself as a media blood sucker. In order to cash in on more of our debilitating celebrity culture, the magazine decided to hound actor Heath Ledger from his grave by assigning a writer to invent a fictional story about the last days of his life. The writer "visited the actor's neighborhood, talked to the store owners and bartenders who may have seen him during his last week, and read as many accounts and rumors about the events surrounding his death as possible. She filled in the rest with her imagination."
I'd say Esquire's editors weren't being imaginative or journalistic or ground-breaking to assign a stunt piece like this, which amounts to celebrity necrophilia. They were being sleazy. Are they now competing in the tabloid category?
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This brief was originally posted at HuffingtonPost.com.
