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Are Clay Aiken's media mentions that much different from any other celebrity? Surely Roger isn't doling out money all over the country just for some small time news reporter to get his fifteen minutes of fame as all of Clay Nation descends upon them. We read every single google alert. We know every single detail while we just don't follow other celebrities that closely. The people in my life know next to nothing about Clay and they aren't living in a cave. So is our persepctive all twisted? I am not naive. I do understand that there are mean spirited people out there that have zeroed in on Clay. However, I also know that there is so much information out there that the average person can't possibly take it all in. They just don't see 10 Clay mentions a day.

So let's find out a thing or two about celebrity watching/ Pick a celebrity, or two, and add them to your google alerts. You can set them up to receive the news as it comes in, daily, weekly etc. Do you see any sort of pattern to their coverage? Do they get tossed into throwaway stories. Is everything positive? Share what you find out here.

Feel free to share anything you like in this thread including links, photos. I can't wait to see how the librarians present their info heee.

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From my Google alert today on Bono. I'll need to do a little research on this, but if I remember what I've heard, Bono was recently offered Knighthood in Great Britain. However, as a citizen of Ireland, special paperwork had to be put through for him to accept this honor, because of the relationships to this day between Ireland and Great Britain. Looks like the letters are coming in....

The Sunday Times, Ireland, January 7, 2007

Letters: Bono takes a royal liberty as a knight

U2 MOVED part of its business from Ireland to avoid tax when the government replaced the exemption enjoyed by artists with a very generous €250,000 annual tax-free allowance. If Bono had moved part of his business from the UK to avoid tax, would Tony Blair have offered him a knighthood for his humanitarian work (Sir Bono — you too are a knight, News, December 24)?

Indeed, would Blair have been allowed to do such a thing if, as Bono did in Croke Park to the taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, he was publicly challenged to meet a United Nations aid target for the developing world out of taxpayers’ money?

Ronan Tynan

Blackrock, Co Dublin

MONARCHISM RULES: Brenda Power (Comment, last week) suggests that those of us who take issue with Bono accepting a knighthood are trapped in the past and carry a chip on our shoulders. She does not mention that accepting an honour from the British state is a political act, a declaration of support for the monarchy. Bono cannot be unaware of the political implications of his decision. He is, after all, a political animal who enjoys quoting Martin Luther King and is at ease addressing a Labour party conference. So does he believe in the monarchy or a republic? Not even Bono can have it both ways.

Kevin Kenny

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That is interesting, because I have always known that Bono does a great deal of good, but has his warts just like everybody else - but this is generally not paid attention to outside of England and Ireland.

I have heard he avoids paying taxes just as much as anyone else does who makes it big in the music business. Moved his corporation to Amsterdam or some such thing.

And I don't think that most of the people who buy his CDs care at all. About anything but the music, that is.

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I don;t know if there is some format we are supposed to follow but this is the result of my first one day google alert...

Kat...mostly pictures...one hate entry in the soul patrol message board...a mention in an Idol reveiw blog...and a mention on an ad for acne that talks about eating disorders.

Josh...he is performing in London, Ontario on Feb 26...some really short and boring blogs.

I got a bio...and he had an almost magical start...he certainly had a fairy godfather in David Foster. He lived in LA and was attending a prestigious school taking musical theatre and not really taking his singing seriously. Then he got a voice coach that knew David Foster. He was introduced and David liked him and started inviting him to sing in his charity balls. Then he asked him to help him as a stand in for the grammy rehearsals for The Prayer...and this was when he first met Celine and Bocelli. Rosie was the host of the grammy;s that year and liked him so she invited him on her show...his first TV appearance I guess. This was in 1999 and he was just 17. Just as he was entering college, David introduced him to Warner executives and he was signed up. He sang on Ally Mc Beal on 2001 season and made two more appearance in the show. Then in 2002 he sang the Prayer with Charlotte church in the 2002 olympics.

Anyway this biography was from 2004 and full of music stuff from how he writes and his influences. Apparently he also does not want to be pigeonholed and like writing lyrics. He wants to sing a lot of type of music.

if anyone is interested the article.

Frankly...I suppose this is the kind of article a lot of Clayfans would dream of, but I really found it such a bore. I didn;t continue reading the huge paragraph on his music and his current cd cos it just had names of composers that didn;t mean a thing to me.

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My first day Google alerts for DAUGHTRY!!:

I had one under News Alerts. It was from a message board on TVGrapevine.com and contains a lot of sniping bewteen Taylor Hicks' fans and DAUGHTRY's!! fans - who should have really one, sour grapes, making excuses as to why TH's album didn't sell as well as DAUGHTRY!!!, etc. Sounded VERY familiar.

Then there were 4 blog alerts. One was someone announcing they put one of DAUGHTRY'S!! songs on their myspace page. One was just a recap of what the past Idols have been doing (mentioning Clay's album was released last September) in anticipation of the new season of Idol. One is from some DAUGHTRY!!! site and you have to register to even lurk, so forget that and one is from some site called MusicJesus.com and all it is is a video from when Chris was still Chris Daughtry and not DAUGHTRY!!! the night he performed "Wanted Dead or Alive" on AI.

So for someone who got all Clay's PR money, there certainly wasn't a lot of news on him - at least so far! :lol:

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Here is the latest Google news on DAUGHTRY!!!

Two news alerts. One is a season by season review of AI. Yeah, yeah, Chris was fave in season 5. This is what it said about season 2:

Season 2: It ran from Jan. 19 to May 20, 2003. Drama included the expulsion of favorite Frenchie Davis from the show when topless photos of her were discovered on a Web site, and the disqualification of Corey Clark when a police record he hadn't mentioned came to light. The finale between Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken was the closest ever, with a margin of just 130,0000 votes giving Studdard the victory, although the millions of votes reportedly overwhelmed the phone system. Aiken has emerged as the bigger star of the two, winning two Billboard awards, but both he and Studdard have released three successful albums.

The second was just about Idol and why its so popular blah, blah, blah. DAUGHTRY!! was just a mention.

Then there were the blogs. The only thing of any substance was a review of his album. It can be found here. It basically questions the song choices and says the sound is androgynous.

And that's about it for today. Maybe tomorrow I'll have something on Kelly.

Where is all the dirt????

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Jennifer Hudson is this year's "it" girl. She is basking in a wave of fabulous reviews and support. All stories are positive. She's getting a variety of press praising her for her role in Dreamgirls. She's a huge part of the upcoming Idol returns press as a non winning success story and she's getting a lot of Cinderella type stories written about her. She's also making the requesite celebrity appearances. Only one naysayer in the comment section of one blog calling her performance no better than a high school production and giving more credit the the director for bringing out the performance. Simon, is that you? Total of 15 articles in 2 days.

Kate Walson - 8 alerts in 2 days. Not a single mention of significance.

Anderson Cooper was the most interesting but I'm sleepy so will write up something tomorrow..

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5 blog alerts for Bono yesterday -- one in a Christian blog (which doesn't surprise me), and a few dedicated to U2, with news about Bono designing a guitar to be auctioned off for a children's charity. 2 news alerts -- both from "U2 France." OK. So that's a NEWS source?!?!?!

5 blog alerts for Harrison Ford. One was a very random mention ("he looks like my Dad,") and most are still about the beginning production of Indiana Jones 4 (hereafter IJ4). One blog entry though was like "doesn't he have enough money?"

2 blog alerts for Alicia Keys. Did you know Bob Dylan mentions her on his last album? (Actually, my husband has that album, and I'd read that before...) Also, she has a movie coming out soon called "Smokin' Aces" with Ben Aflack.

Boring....

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KAT

News: just mentioned in an article on swollen vocal chords

blogs: one review of her leaked songs, they were disappoined;1 picture; 1 passing mentione on a personal blog and one used in a bogus site that I think is just trying to generate hits cos its simply links to OLD MTV articles.

JOSH

news: all inconsequential...a mention in a review of someone else; mentione in a bogus prediction.

Blogs: lyrics and you tube comparison of Josh and Linkin Park's for My December ( gosh is he always so nasally yuck and man talk about making funny faces while singing; I prefer linkin parks version)

3 useless mentione in personal blogs (just passing mentions not blogs written about him)

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5 blog entries for Harrison Ford today, and one news article. One of the blog entries is a series of photos of Harrison working on and flying a helicopter. Another was simply the press release from Lucasfilm about the beginning of filming for IJ4. But...here's the rest of them in one question:

Did y'all know that Harrison Ford is OLD?!?!?!

Yep, at age 64.

Now, I do have to admit that I'm very curious to see how they are going to have him play IJ, when the last film was made almost 18 years ago. But still....people are pre-judging already. Kinda like a certain album....

Here's the "news" article:

After nearly two decades since the last episode, another “Indiana Jones” movie is expected to go before the cameras soon. As in all the others, it will star the venerable Harrison Ford, who at age 65 has to be getting a bit slow in the fedora. I wonder which of “The Golden Girls” will co-star as his nubile young leading lady he rescues from a fate worse than menopause?

Now, it is a signed article, from "Satirist Ted Sherman." I wonder if he'll get outraged letters from HF fans, though. *g*

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After nearly two decades since the last episode, another “Indiana Jones” movie is expected to go before the cameras soon. As in all the others, it will star the venerable Harrison Ford, who at age 65 has to be getting a bit slow in the fedora. I wonder which of “The Golden Girls” will co-star as his nubile young leading lady he rescues from a fate worse than menopause?

Oh for goodness sakes...like they can;t make a story of Indiana 20 years after the last film. Why are people lacking imagination?

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I chose Anderson because I love him but don't really know anything about him. I never even gave his sexuality a second though until the so-called Anderson/Clay sighting and somebody at the CH brought it up.

Anyway, the basics

10 google alerts in two days

Two or three were simply insignificant mentions

The vast majority were media watch type mentions. How Anderson and CNN handled the Hussein hanging... is Anderson360 simply a tabloid because it included the Rosie/Trump crap... apparantly the graphics used on his show on more than one occassion had misspellings. Most of the media watch mentions weren't positive but not too stinging.

But on day two I hit something interesting

To me this is a typical Clay like article. I can hear half of Claynation crying foul, while the other half says..it's not that bad. heee

The first half of the articles talks about Anderson like he is just a pre-packaged product - comparing him to news icons of the past. They were more stout and sturdy and serious while he is all about teaching America to get in touch with their feelings.

The second half is how Anderson hasn't grabbed the mantle or taken up the cause of the gay community. That it's his duty to do so considering he's so warm and fuzzy and hint hint hint his personal life. Sound familiar? But read it for yourselves because I bet interpretations will vary on this one big time... just like it would if Clay's name replaced Anderson's in the article.

I'm glad I picked him. What will be interesting is..is this normal..or something unusual for him.

Another point of interest

Anderson lists what's on his ipod. The comments that follow are what you can usually find in the comments of any Clay article.

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OK, on JT:

7 News Alerts: 2 on splitting with Cameron Diaz, 2 about him taking his mom to the premium (I vague remember people bitching about Clay being seen in public with his mom); 2 about his new movie role, and 1 saying he may be dating Scarlett Johansson. All not terribly interesting.

Nothing about my boy Pierce.

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Alicia Keyes: No news alerts overnight, but 3 blog alerts. Two were random mentions. But there is one that found a website discussing women's body image and the way photos are retouched to make celebrities look better than they really are. The site is here. (Click on a picture, and then roll your mouse over it to see the "real" picture). Anyway, this blogger says "I also discovered that Alicia Keyes is even more ugly than I originally thought." Ooooo boy....

Bono and U2: 5 blog mentions, 2 random. Another is about Bono and his wife working on creating products that are "fair trade." There's a LONG blog about U2's lyrics and religion, which is a long-running theme in the fandom of U2. The final one is a talk with a man who is a partner with Bono in something called "Elevation Partners," which is basically giving "content creators" more of a share of what they create. (I'm not sure if I follow it, I'll have to read it better....)

Three news items, one random. The second is about Bono and the boys moving their music publishing business out of Ireland, in order to save on taxes. This is regarded with scorn by some, because of Bono's belief in debt reduction; this article is in favor of him, however. The final is actually a U2 news website, and it starts with this paragraph:

(taps fingers on desk)

(taps again)

So, anything going on in the U2 world that you know about? Yeah, me neither. Trust me, this is the worst time to be the writer of a weekly column about U2. Anyone mind if I take the next six months off? :-)

I had to laugh at that, considering the Clay Aiken droughts....

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I know...too funny. so even U2 has down time.

I know Claygasm volunteered to take on Kelly...but I got an alert for her before I cancelled it. There was this article that had a headline...Kelly Clarkson;s mess at the mandarin...now this was written tabloid style, like Kelly did something really naughty and shocking. But all it was ...Kelly and two friend were at a bar...kelly was having white wine and the friend spilled his drink over himself...and Kelly at midnight stood up and loudly announced to her tablemates that she is going to bed cos she has to sing in the monring. So its either kelly is such a big star that this incident would be seen as news....or someone in Kelly's camp is so desperate to create a bad girl image for her...but somehow she isn't cooperating much with actual wild behavior. I just found it all pretty pathetic.

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I can't check my alerts at work - maybe Justin will have said something stupid by tonight.

I just saw on people.com that he started his tour yesterday (there was a StarTracks picture...hmmm....I should probably subscribe to those too....). Anyway, you should be getting more than a few reviews. Wonder if he'll get the "cool" reviews that Clay doesn't get....

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I know...too funny. so even U2 has down time.

I know Claygasm volunteered to take on Kelly...but I got an alert for her before I cancelled it. There was this article that had a headline...Kelly Clarkson;s mess at the mandarin...now this was written tabloid style, like Kelly did something really naughty and shocking. But all it was ...Kelly and two friend were at a bar...kelly was having white wine and the friend spilled his drink over himself...and Kelly at midnight stood up and loudly announced to her tablemates that she is going to bed cos she has to sing in the monring. So its either kelly is such a big star that this incident would be seen as news....or someone in Kelly's camp is so desperate to create a bad girl image for her...but somehow she isn't cooperating much with actual wild behavior. I just found it all pretty pathetic.

Gee, I didn't get that one! :lol:

What I got was:

1) Kelly got some punk bassist to play on her next album - some guy by the name of Mike Watt. From the articles it sounds like he's some big time guy in the punk world. HAdn't heard of Kelly except that she won some game show! Here is one of the articles. They all said pretty much the same thing. http://harpmagazine.com/news/detail.cfm?article=10796

2) There was an article on how the British pop charts are now counting downloaded music which enabled some Brit winner of some talent show contest's version of Kelly's "A Moment Like This" to top the chart.

3) The above winner is named Leona Lewis. The show was X-Factor and her mentor is Simon Cowell. She has been invited to appear on the upcoming season on AI.

4) There were several mentions in conjunction with the upcoming season of AI, along with Clay and other past Idols

5) There was an article about how Kelly was the most played artist on Australian radio in 2006

And that's it today for Kelly.

Now on to DAUGHTRY!!!. There was on article from Online Rock Radio from Athens Greece! IT was just about the upcoming promotional appearance for DAUGHTRY to promote his upcoming tour. I guess this is where some of Clay's PR money is going! :lol:

Daughtry, featuring former American Idol contestant Chris Daughtry, is doing a series of promotional appearances to warm up for its upcoming U.S. tour, according to Tunelab Music. The group has made an appearance on Monday, January 8th, on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. It will be followed by a visit to the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on the 9th and a show at the Viper Room in Los Angeles on the 11th. Chris Daughtry said he's grateful for all the support and attention he and his band have received since he got his break on American Idol: "It's amazing. It's a little overwhelming at first, but I'm getting used to it. I'm just really happy that I have the support that I have, and hopefully to continue having."

Dates and venues for Daughtry's first full tour have yet to be announced.

The band's self-titled debut album has sold 1.1 million copies since coming out in late November. The first single is called "It's Not Over."

Gee, he was on Leno last night? Did anyone see it? Did he get couch time? Was his band visible without special glasses??

This was also mentioned on About.com, but that site is po-up hell.

Then there were a bunch of blog mentions by fans and a few people had added DAUGHTRY!!! stuff to their myspace pages.

And that's it for DAUGHTRY!! It will be interesting to see how much press he gets about his tour.

Does anyone remember if he was on Leno around the time his album was released? I thought he was but its would be pretty odd for him to be back so soon.

Edited by Claygasm
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