Ink Paper Words' Profile

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Pacific Northwest, United States
In elementary school, I desperately wanted my mother to order books for me from those flyers Scholastic hands out to kids. She refused, citing the "perfectly good library down the street." I exacted revenge by becoming a card-carrying ALA accredited reference librarian. Ha! Take that!

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Oprah's Unauthorized Bio and Hipocrisy

Wow. I can't believe that TPTB are so lined up against Kitty Kelley about this, her what, 20, 30th un-authorized biography brings.

Come on, if the British royal family can't stop her from publishing (although they apparently were successful in having the book not published or sold in the UK) what makes Oprah think she can? I realize that she is the Queen of all Media – perhaps she should ditch Steadman and go with Howard Stern).

Oprah, honey, this just makes you look like one big censor and hypocrite. You wouldn't have the slightest problem having any other authors on, you've had KK on before – at least when the subject was someone else.

BTW I would never have bought this book. But the media backlash itself creates a demand. Sort of like when the Vatican came out against The Da Vinci Code and guaranteed a readership of millions. I won't buy the book but now I probably will check it out of the library.

Furthermore, I hear that while threats are made, no one has actually sued Kitty Kelley. Perhaps the basis for this is that the defense for slander/libel is that you are telling the truth.

There has always been a dichotomy between what an "unauthorized" biographer and the subject would say. Obviously, the authorized biographer has been told not to disclose certain things. That alone makes an authorized bio suspect. In this case, as with her other bios that rankled the subject, I think it's in all probability right on.

Regardless what anyone thinks of Kitty Kelley in general (and again, it should be pointed out that Oprah has no problem with exposes of OTHER people) truth is the standard defense again libel/slander.

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