Britney story in Rolling Stone

I'm by no means a celebrity news reader or watcher. I mostly avoid the stuff like the plague, and I'm embarrassed about how much attention it gets.

That being said, as the definitive journalistic inquiry into a quintessentially American rags-to-riches-to-rags story, Vanessa Grigoriadis' piece is fantastic and worth the time invested.

Here's an excerpt:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/18310562/the_tragedy_of_britney_spears

 

That story was one of the best reads I've picked up in a while. So good, I was reading excerpts of it to Mr. Cougar.

For Vanessa Grigoriadis, this is par for the course - she wrote two memorable Rolling Stone pieces, one on Scientology (which elicited a published letter to the editor from Kirstie Alley) and another on the campus culture at Duke in light of the rape allegations against the lacrosse players.

 

The Duke story was great. This one looks entertaining.
Sounds like Brit is one declined credit card charge from throwing herself in front of a bus.

 

This one is great... What made me laugh the most is the number of times you see (Spears denies this) among the copy...

There is juicy stuff in there... It's a really good read...

 

I had read the excerpt previously. A nice step up from the US Weekly style of reporting.

 

Can't believe I wasted my time reading that crap. Loved it!

 

For a long story, it was a very quick read...

 

The best line of the story is when she refers to Spears as an inbred swamp thing

 

No, the best line was:

"Federline gave Britney license to fully embrace her white-trash side."

(oh, of note - Vanessa Grigoriadis recently wrote a piece on "To Catch a Predator." Janet Reitman wrote the Duke story.)

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10464110/sex__scandal_at_duke/3

 

Sorry to threadjack, but what do you think of their practice of offering an excerpt online of the current cover story, not the whole thing? Would newspapers be doing better if we'd adopted that practice from the get-go, or does it only lend itself to extremely long, complex stories?

 

That's what I think, yes. Pretty much limited to narratives.