Conchshell
02-26-07, - 04:03 PM
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/16782016.htm
Anna Nicole saga stirs Bahamas media frenzy
By Jacqueline Charles
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
NASSAU, Bahamas - Across the street from the luxury waterfront home where Anna Nicole Smith lived, Fox network cameramen stake out an empty lot waiting for the white gates to swing open.
Around the corner, freelance photographer Richard Hokemeir keeps watch from the top of a stepladder perched in the flatbed of his conspicuously parked Ford Ranger pickup.
And in beachfront hotels, a frenzied gaggle of U.S. journalists have transformed suites into makeshift newsrooms as producers and writers run down the newest plot-twisting lead in the Smith saga and map out their next move.
"The competition? We are sick about it," John Marquis, managing editor of the Nassau Tribune, said with a slight grin.
The Tribune in fact crushed the competition and made worldwide headlines last week when it published a bombshell: a photo of a fully clothed Smith and former Bahamian Immigration Minister Shane Gibson in a close embrace on her bed.
The revelation pumped new life into the story and a renewed media frenzy that forced Gibson to abruptly resign Sunday while denying any wrongdoing. He did not respond to a request for an interview from The Miami Herald.
"As a broadsheet, middle-of-the-road paper, we are not actually in the business of publishing salacious images," said Marquis, a British journalist who has been in charge of the paper for eight years. "However, the political impact of these pictures was such that the entire circulation of the paper was sold out in no time at all."
Indeed, on the day the photos ran, one enterprising fellow sold the 75-cent newspaper, which carries The Miami Herald's International Edition here, for $20 a pop. And a copy has been auctioned off on eBay.
In a country where most are blase when it comes to celebrities, the Anna Nicole Smith story is not only changing the way Bahamians view stars, but also how they report on them. The story has spawned a hurricane-force media frenzy as Smith's mother and former lovers fight over her remains and custody of her 5-month-old daughter Dannielynn.
And the media storm is only bound to intensify now that a Broward judge has ruled that Smith is to be buried here next to her son, Daniel, who died suddenly in September at age 20, three days after Dannielynn was born.
"There is nothing for the government to do. It's a private matter," government spokesman Anthony Forbes said when asked whether the island chain was preparing for the rush of more media outlets expected to arrive for the funeral.
Prior to the Broward hearing, the Bahamas government had graciously set up a media center at a local hotel for the nearly 20 media outlets deployed here. Among them: CNN, Fox News, NBC, the New York Daily News and New York Post and Miami's CBS4, as well as TV crews from France, New Zealand and Japan.
It's all been a boon for the Bahamas, and not because of all the journalists paying for the $265-a-night-and-up hotel rooms.
"We are viewing the publicity as positive, as there are more requests for information on the Bahamas and the name recognition has substantially increased through constant mentioning on many news networks," said John Carey, permanent secretary in the ministry of tourism.
Tourists are renting mopeds and paying up to $60 an hour for taxi tours of Smith's now-famous home, known as Horizons, and the Lakeview cemetery where she will be laid to rest next to Daniel.
It was Daniel's sudden death at a private hospital here that sparked interest in the buxom blonde's life in the Bahamas.
"Prior to that it was not a story," said Marquis, who concedes that he had to ask his young staffers who Smith was when he heard about Daniel's death.
And even after her burial, the saga will continue for a while, with plenty of courtroom drama still to come in the Bahamas.
_On Monday, a Bahamian judge will hear testimony in the matter of custody of Dannielynn. The child, who stands to inherit $400 million, is the focus of intense paternity suits in California and Broward. At least three men are claiming to be her daddy, including Howard K. Stern, Smith's latest partner and the person whose name is listed on Dannielynn's birth certificate.
_On the same day, attorneys for another one of Smith's former boyfriends, South Carolina developer G. Ben Thompson will seek to evict Stern from Horizons. Thompson is disputing Smith's claim that he gave her the $900,000 house as a gift.
_Then next month the inquest into Daniel's death begins.
"Most people just wish the publicity would go away," said Jeff Lloyd, host of Real Talk Live, a daily call-in radio talk show here.
Indeed, many Bahamians say they are not only tired of the story, but also embarrassed by the publicity. Lloyd said some networks have portrayed the island-nation of 302,000 as "a nation for sale, where sex can buy favors from government officials ... and drugs are for sale on every corner."
"It is unfair, and certainly untrue," he said of the portrayals, adding that the U.S. media's obsession with the story "is a reflection of the culture . . . and the kind of journalism that is practiced in the western world. Salacious sleaze and gutter journalism."
Christine Aylen, a Bahamian photographer who shoots for several news organizations, said the story has changed the way Bahamians now deal with celebrities. And not necessarily for the better.
"Normally we don't care," said Aylen, who lives around the corner from Horizons. "Now nobody will even talk to anyone with a microphone unless you pay them. If they know anything or have any kind of connection to Anna Nicole Smith, they want you to pay them for their story. They are aware the tabloids and entertainment shows pay for stories."
Several news outlets have denied paying for stories. But more than one local reporter here says they have been able to confirm the payments.
But not all of it has been bad news for the local press. Clint Watson, a senior newscaster for state-owned ZNS television, which got the exclusive Gibson interview when he resigned, said the increased media competition has forced the usually laid-back island journalists to step it up.
"We are getting the shock of our lives. . . . You've got to fight to get it (the story)," Watson said, standing among two dozen foreign journalists outside a courthouse holding a closed door hearing on the baby custody case.
"It's caused Bahamians to develop a more aggressive approach to news, which has been a good thing for us."
And it hasn't been bad for the local journalists' bank accounts, either.
Hokemeir, the freelancer who has lived here since 1966, said assignment editors haven't stopped calling him since Smith's death, and some days he shoots for two and three clients.
Hokemeir has already staked out a spot in the cemetery, not far from Daniel's unmarked grave, where he plans to set up his 20-foot ladder.
"I need to get my wife a new kitchen, and a new washer and dryer, or I'll really be in the dog house," he said.--- -
:gi:
I do not think it is good for The Bahamas for a few reasons....
She has no family in The Bahamas. People should be buried close to their family or love ones...Daniel should have been buried in the states.
We will have a bad stigma brought on by the Shame Gibson/Anna scandal for years to come.
The gravesite has already become a tourist attraction which is unfair to other mourners who have laid their loved ones to rest at Lake View. Now they will have strangers trampling over graves to take pictures next to ANS and her son.
Some Bahamians are already trying to profit from her death, just like Howard K. Stern and all the others who claim to love her. When it was announced last week that the body would be buried in the Bahamas I heard some people cheering...then they went on to talk about how they could promote their own business during the funeral. When I commented on the inappropriateness of their conversation and that it will further tarnish our image they replied, "She is only a dead woman" :eek:
Most people I know think it is bad for the country. What do you all say?
Anna Nicole saga stirs Bahamas media frenzy
By Jacqueline Charles
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
NASSAU, Bahamas - Across the street from the luxury waterfront home where Anna Nicole Smith lived, Fox network cameramen stake out an empty lot waiting for the white gates to swing open.
Around the corner, freelance photographer Richard Hokemeir keeps watch from the top of a stepladder perched in the flatbed of his conspicuously parked Ford Ranger pickup.
And in beachfront hotels, a frenzied gaggle of U.S. journalists have transformed suites into makeshift newsrooms as producers and writers run down the newest plot-twisting lead in the Smith saga and map out their next move.
"The competition? We are sick about it," John Marquis, managing editor of the Nassau Tribune, said with a slight grin.
The Tribune in fact crushed the competition and made worldwide headlines last week when it published a bombshell: a photo of a fully clothed Smith and former Bahamian Immigration Minister Shane Gibson in a close embrace on her bed.
The revelation pumped new life into the story and a renewed media frenzy that forced Gibson to abruptly resign Sunday while denying any wrongdoing. He did not respond to a request for an interview from The Miami Herald.
"As a broadsheet, middle-of-the-road paper, we are not actually in the business of publishing salacious images," said Marquis, a British journalist who has been in charge of the paper for eight years. "However, the political impact of these pictures was such that the entire circulation of the paper was sold out in no time at all."
Indeed, on the day the photos ran, one enterprising fellow sold the 75-cent newspaper, which carries The Miami Herald's International Edition here, for $20 a pop. And a copy has been auctioned off on eBay.
In a country where most are blase when it comes to celebrities, the Anna Nicole Smith story is not only changing the way Bahamians view stars, but also how they report on them. The story has spawned a hurricane-force media frenzy as Smith's mother and former lovers fight over her remains and custody of her 5-month-old daughter Dannielynn.
And the media storm is only bound to intensify now that a Broward judge has ruled that Smith is to be buried here next to her son, Daniel, who died suddenly in September at age 20, three days after Dannielynn was born.
"There is nothing for the government to do. It's a private matter," government spokesman Anthony Forbes said when asked whether the island chain was preparing for the rush of more media outlets expected to arrive for the funeral.
Prior to the Broward hearing, the Bahamas government had graciously set up a media center at a local hotel for the nearly 20 media outlets deployed here. Among them: CNN, Fox News, NBC, the New York Daily News and New York Post and Miami's CBS4, as well as TV crews from France, New Zealand and Japan.
It's all been a boon for the Bahamas, and not because of all the journalists paying for the $265-a-night-and-up hotel rooms.
"We are viewing the publicity as positive, as there are more requests for information on the Bahamas and the name recognition has substantially increased through constant mentioning on many news networks," said John Carey, permanent secretary in the ministry of tourism.
Tourists are renting mopeds and paying up to $60 an hour for taxi tours of Smith's now-famous home, known as Horizons, and the Lakeview cemetery where she will be laid to rest next to Daniel.
It was Daniel's sudden death at a private hospital here that sparked interest in the buxom blonde's life in the Bahamas.
"Prior to that it was not a story," said Marquis, who concedes that he had to ask his young staffers who Smith was when he heard about Daniel's death.
And even after her burial, the saga will continue for a while, with plenty of courtroom drama still to come in the Bahamas.
_On Monday, a Bahamian judge will hear testimony in the matter of custody of Dannielynn. The child, who stands to inherit $400 million, is the focus of intense paternity suits in California and Broward. At least three men are claiming to be her daddy, including Howard K. Stern, Smith's latest partner and the person whose name is listed on Dannielynn's birth certificate.
_On the same day, attorneys for another one of Smith's former boyfriends, South Carolina developer G. Ben Thompson will seek to evict Stern from Horizons. Thompson is disputing Smith's claim that he gave her the $900,000 house as a gift.
_Then next month the inquest into Daniel's death begins.
"Most people just wish the publicity would go away," said Jeff Lloyd, host of Real Talk Live, a daily call-in radio talk show here.
Indeed, many Bahamians say they are not only tired of the story, but also embarrassed by the publicity. Lloyd said some networks have portrayed the island-nation of 302,000 as "a nation for sale, where sex can buy favors from government officials ... and drugs are for sale on every corner."
"It is unfair, and certainly untrue," he said of the portrayals, adding that the U.S. media's obsession with the story "is a reflection of the culture . . . and the kind of journalism that is practiced in the western world. Salacious sleaze and gutter journalism."
Christine Aylen, a Bahamian photographer who shoots for several news organizations, said the story has changed the way Bahamians now deal with celebrities. And not necessarily for the better.
"Normally we don't care," said Aylen, who lives around the corner from Horizons. "Now nobody will even talk to anyone with a microphone unless you pay them. If they know anything or have any kind of connection to Anna Nicole Smith, they want you to pay them for their story. They are aware the tabloids and entertainment shows pay for stories."
Several news outlets have denied paying for stories. But more than one local reporter here says they have been able to confirm the payments.
But not all of it has been bad news for the local press. Clint Watson, a senior newscaster for state-owned ZNS television, which got the exclusive Gibson interview when he resigned, said the increased media competition has forced the usually laid-back island journalists to step it up.
"We are getting the shock of our lives. . . . You've got to fight to get it (the story)," Watson said, standing among two dozen foreign journalists outside a courthouse holding a closed door hearing on the baby custody case.
"It's caused Bahamians to develop a more aggressive approach to news, which has been a good thing for us."
And it hasn't been bad for the local journalists' bank accounts, either.
Hokemeir, the freelancer who has lived here since 1966, said assignment editors haven't stopped calling him since Smith's death, and some days he shoots for two and three clients.
Hokemeir has already staked out a spot in the cemetery, not far from Daniel's unmarked grave, where he plans to set up his 20-foot ladder.
"I need to get my wife a new kitchen, and a new washer and dryer, or I'll really be in the dog house," he said.--- -
:gi:
I do not think it is good for The Bahamas for a few reasons....
She has no family in The Bahamas. People should be buried close to their family or love ones...Daniel should have been buried in the states.
We will have a bad stigma brought on by the Shame Gibson/Anna scandal for years to come.
The gravesite has already become a tourist attraction which is unfair to other mourners who have laid their loved ones to rest at Lake View. Now they will have strangers trampling over graves to take pictures next to ANS and her son.
Some Bahamians are already trying to profit from her death, just like Howard K. Stern and all the others who claim to love her. When it was announced last week that the body would be buried in the Bahamas I heard some people cheering...then they went on to talk about how they could promote their own business during the funeral. When I commented on the inappropriateness of their conversation and that it will further tarnish our image they replied, "She is only a dead woman" :eek:
Most people I know think it is bad for the country. What do you all say?