8-2 Blog: Best Practices

“The LA Times calls Perez, "like US Weekly, the Star, the Enquirer and Life & Style all rolled into one sweet yet snarky, sagacious yet salacious gay man." Rolling Stone writes, Perez is “The Queen of mean”, The New York Times describes him “Love him or (he prefers) hate him… [He] has become a hard-to-ignore Hollywood player. Perez was named the #1 Web celebrity for ’07, ’08 and ‘09 by Forbes Magazine and as one of the 15 most influential Hispanics in the US by People in Espanol. PerezHilton.com averages over 280 million page views and 13.5 million unique visitors per month.” (Perezhilton.com, 2004)

www.perezhilton.com is an entertainment blog that posts information about celebrities, music, and fashion. I have been following this blog since my freshman year in college. I was made aware of this blog from a few of my friends who shared it with me via Facebook. This blog is strictly for entertainment news and the bulk of the information on here is gossip.  Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr.aka  Perez Hilton website started off writing gossip stories about local celebrities from his lap top.  People started sharing his blog via social media because of not only the gossip stories he would post, but his comical remarks about each gossip story. In addition, viewers could also comment on the stories which made this blog interactive.   Soon, everyone knew about www.perezhilton.com. Perez Hilton has gained an extremely successful career from the start of his celeb gossip blog.  Perezhilton.com is said to get over 300 million hits a month. Today you can see Perez Hilton all over the media scene. “Featured in/on the L.A. Times, The View, The Wall Street Journal, MTV’s TRL, Larry King, CNN, E!, Time, Paper Magazine, LIFE, SPIN, CBS News, Business Week, Much Music, LA Magazine, The Advocate, Dateline, Howard Stern, Us Weekly, InTouch Weekly, NY Times, LA Times, Billboard and many more. "P Nasty" has created an empire which includes his own record label, Perezious Music, introducing acts such as Slimmy, Travis Garland and Semi Precious Weapons to the world. He also launched his mobile website at m.perezhilton.com, a new fashion website CoCoPerez.com and two best sellers in 2009, Perez Hilton’s Red Carpet Suicide and Perez Hilton’s True Bloggywood Stories.” (“Perez Hilton Biography,”2013)

In terms of best practices and credibility the first thing I thought of was all the different images this website posts. I wondered where these photos came from. I also wondered where Perez Hilton got  his information. Who are his sources? Are these gossip stories credible? While searching the website I did find a few disclaimers:

“All images on perezhilton.com are readily available in various places on the Internet and believed to be in public domain. Images posted are believed to be posted within our rights according to the U.S. Copyright Fair Use Act (title 17, U.S. Code.)

Claims of Infringement

If you believe that any content appearing on perezhilton.com infringes on your copyright, please let us know. E-Mail info@perezhilton.com
following information to us and the infringing material will be removed as soon as possible.

(a) your name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address;
(b) a description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed;
(c) the exact URL or a description of each place where alleged infringing material is located;
(d) a statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use has not been authorized by you, your agent, or the law;
(e) your electronic or physical signature or the electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on your behalf; and
(f) a statement by you made under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate, that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf

Please also note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity is infringing may be subject to liability.

- See more at: http://perezhilton.com/?page_id=3707#sthash.WrJShMzG.dpuf” (“Perezhilton.com,” 2004)

The images posted are posted from the internet and according to the U.S. Copyright Fair Use Act it is within rights that public images are allowed to be posted via this website. In terms of the actual content, most if not all is basically speculation and gossip related. I don’t think many consider this website a “go to” for accurate news as gossip is predominately based on hearsay and for entertainment purposes.

 

References

 

P Hilton. (2004). PerezHilton.com. Retrieved from www.perezhilton.com

(2013) Perez Hilton Biography. Retrieved from www.affiliates.westwoodone.com/music/PHilton-bio.as