erin mccann |Verified account

A former child star who was in one movie franchise that you saw as a kid is arrested 30 years later and thought to be on meth. He hasn't had an acting credit in 12 years. Should it be news? Should it be news for niche entertainment sites? Should it be news for mainstream sites?

I'm watching it play out in real time, and watching more mainstream national news sites jump in, and just ... watching.

Between aggregation and digital competition for the lowest hanging clicks, what might be of interest to a gossip site or a news org local to the crime instead bounces around creating a digital footprint far larger than anything about it deserves.

The line between "well it's trending" and "but do we need to spend time on this?" is a squishy one and I am ALL IN FAVOR of publishing rather than not in most cases. but to me this is a pretty clear case of, well, it's ok to pass. And i'm having a hard time seeing the other side.

But I only got there after clicking, because of course i clicked too. So.

Anyway. It's fine. Gossip sites are gonna do what they do. It's when what are supposed to be more "serious" news sites started to pick it up that I began to despair.