Why Britney Spears' Public Breakdown Is Your Fault 
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

I always have to give props to People Magazine and People.com - they are the pop culture version of TIME magazine.  They keep you informed on the things you want to know about without citing fake sources or straying from the truth.  In their Special Edition magazine through March 17, 2008 (for a whopping $10.99 US retail at your local store right now), "Gone Too Soon," they feature over 65 celebrities who died too young.

In its intro, People writes, "When Elvis Presley died in 1977, People did not put him on the cover.  Instead, the magazine addressed the King's untimely passing with one picture, one paragraph and 171 words, in Star Tracks - right above an item about a new Dorothy Hamill ice-skating doll.

"Looking back, it seems like a jaw-dropping decision.  But we, the editors, meant no disrespect:  The magazine was new and still struggling every week to define what it was and learn what readers wanted.

"Quite simply, we thought that, for a magazine that thrived on the headlong energy of celebrity and popular culture, death was too morbid a subject for the cover.  Readers, we feared, would recoil.

"We were, of course, unquestionably, stupendously wrong."

And what readers want now, sadly, is the inside information on Britney Spears' breakdown.  Oh, People Magazine knows you by now, have no doubt about it.  In their regular issue that's hitting newsstands January 21st, their cover story is:

"The Real Story :  Britney's Mental Illness.  What's behind her disturbing behavior; How her sons are doing; Why she won't get help."

Just to further drive home my point here, Britney's "public breakdown" was not a public breakdown at all, but an incident that happened at her own home and in a private hospital room,  that was reported on by photographers and media from all over the world, because you want to be present to witness it.

They're not reporting this because it doesn't pay the bills - by online polls, sales reports, and a gazillion other reader surveys, People finds out what you are looking to to read about. As morbidly curious as the public was about Elvis' death, John Lennon's death, Anna Nicole's death, and all of the other untimely passings that People highlights in "Gone Too Soon;" the public is, today, equally curious about the meltdown of the once-revered pop princess.

And aren't you the public?  And weren't you just thinking of going out and buying this?

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