Media Challenged

Now that Mildred Patricia Baena has been identified as the mother of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s love-child, one question remains: will there be enough reporters available to cover Schwarzenegger’s breakup with Maria Shriver? Unconfirmed reports that Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s victim lives in a housing facility for people with AIDS and that she spit his semen onto the floor of the hotel only increase the pressure on chronically understaffed newspapers and online outlets like The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast and Drudge Report (“IMF Accuser in Apt. for HIV Vics,” New York Post, 5/18/11) The fact that ad revenues in print and online media probably peak with each newly leaked celebrity transgression doesn’t really solve what is essentially a staffing problem. For instance, both Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen should be paid royalties by publications like The New York Post that profit from their misdeeds. However, it is unlikely that any print publication is going to hire more reporters on the basis of an upswing in the kinds of meltdowns we’ve seen of late—primarily because such events, while profitable, tend to be fickle as sources of income. Maria Shriver, who herself was a television anchor before she gave up journalism because of her position as the governor's wife, should be the first to realize how marital breakups like the one she is experiencing tax the resources of information-gathering organizations. The fact that she has indicated she won’t talk further on the subject of her ruined marriage is admirable though unfortunate since, in effect, she’s the ultimate stringer. What better person to report on a husband’s marital infidelity than his jilted wife?