Sign of the Times

A.P. Says It Wants to Know Everything About Britney Spears


The Associated Press is bolstering its entertainment news coverage — and for many readers and viewers, Britney Spears is nothing if not entertaining.

An internal memorandum from The A.P.’s Los Angeles bureau dictating coverage of the troubled pop star was published by several media blogs on Tuesday, prompting some punch lines at the news service’s expense.

“Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving Britney is a big deal,” Frank Baker, the Los Angeles assistant bureau chief, wrote on Tuesday morning, three days after Ms. Spears was released from the hospital where she had been admitted in the wake of a custody dispute.

“Boy, that qualifies as an understatement,” Tirdad Derakhshani, a Philadelphia Inquirer writer remarked in the online column SideShow. On Romenesko, a popular online media site owned by the Poynter Institute, a commenter added, “Not a good day for journalism as a discipline.”

In the memo, Mr. Baker said that not every rumor should be published by The Associated Press. But “we want to pay attention to what others are reporting and seek to confirm those stories that WE feel warrant the wire,” he wrote, adding, “And when we determine that we’ll write something, we must expedite it.”