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Opinion: Celebrity poll shocker! Fully 1% of Americans see need for more coverage of Mel, Lindsay, Justin et al

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A new poll, just out, reveals that fully 1% of Americans think the news media need to focus more attention on celebrities. Too much celebrity news coverage? No, we don’t do enough.

In other celebrity-related polling news, the same Rasmussen Reports poll finds that a mere 87% of Americans think the media pay too much attention to celebrities, while in an unusual display of self-candor, 84% of Americans admit that Americans themselves (other Americans, mind you) pay too much attention to celebrities.

A whopping 9% in the Rasmussen survey say the media’s coverage volume of celebrities is just about right. Amen to that if that brings you here.
Naturally, we’re eager to meet the nation’s compelling needs for celebrity coverage, but it’s true we have lagged behind here on the courtroom doings of Lindsay Lohanand some taped recordings of someone named Mel Gibson.

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We’ve ignored Lohan because, although her problems are similar to ...

... those of some in elective office (underwear aside), she is not yet running from, er, for anything. And Gibson, like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, cannot run for the White House because of his native birth not being in these United States (Enter birther comments below).

Justin Bieber is too young to seek public office yet. Lady Gaga is otherwise busy. And Carrie Prejean just got married (to a man!). So we won’t be covering the divorce for several months yet. (Although we did have a little something about the Carrie Prejean sex tape here.) Speaking of divorce, Sandra Bullock’s is final.

We have, however, been covering the hypothetical appointment of Oprah Winfrey to the U.S. Senate right here.

A former Alaska governor has become something more than a mere politician, and we’ve had a little coverage of Sarah Palin right here.To be honest, we get most of our celebrity news from colleague Christie D’Zurilla over at the Ministry of Gossip.

The ‘too-much-attention-to-celebrities’ poll number is up from the 80% who felt that way last fall after the celebrated ‘balloon boy’ incident that created a family of instant celebrities who did such great business for cable news channels during several hours that day.

And it’s also up from the 80% who felt that way after abundant news coverage of Elin Nordegren and some duffer named Tiger Woods. Because who cares about serial sex anyway?

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Here’s a strange thing about the Rasmussen celebrity poll results though: Although more than eight out of 10 Americans say their countrymen pay too much attention to celebrities, fewer than one in four Americans say they pay much attention at all to celebrities.

Now, because only politicians tell lies, how in the world do you think we should account for this gaping disparity?

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credits: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times (Bullock); How Hwee Young / EPA (Gibson); Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times (Lohan); Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images (Bieber); Jemal Countess / Getty Images (Lady Gaga).

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