A local television reporter put a question up on Facebook about the exact headline printed in two different magazines on different subjects. The reporter asked, “which headline do you think will sell the most copies?” The reporter further explained the question with the following commentary.

... The real one with an important message about taking control of your own health OR the junk tabloid cashing in on a troubled young woman?

I found the question as a whole questionable to ask and the addition of defining which headline was important and which wasn’t misleading. To me the reporter was leading the audience to pick People magazine because its headline talked about cancer in a news reporter. While the reporter felt In Touch was ‘cashing in’ on a troubled young woman, couldn’t it be said that In Touch was giving an important message about how we disregard and/or accept the action of mentally ill people in America?

To me the question would have to be, if I were to entertain the question, how could two magazines from rival publishers have the same headline for different subjects? Both magazines trade in celebrity gossip however People will have the added spin of putting a few human interest stories in their magazine. The goal is the same for both magazine; to sell copies. Just look at the sidebar pictures on the cover of both magazines. Both have stories of celebrities with situation, to be frank, that many Americans don’t deal with on a day to day basis. Yes, regular people deal with death, choosing a career over staying at home and court issues, but their business isn’t put into a magazine for hundreds of thousands of people to read. If a regular person has a health issue like cancer or a mental illness, more than likely they’re not going to have a national magazine putting them on the cover of a magazine. They might have better luck with a local reporter taking interest in the story, but the odds of that happening are slim.

What separates us from celebrities is the support a celebrity will receive when they hit an issue. In most cases being a celebrity affords someone with the financial means to help in a difficult situation. They will have the money to take care of the surgery or the mental health stay. They will have the money to do follow up care. The bad part about celebrity is a lot of people will have access to personal issues in your life. A camera might catch you breaking up with a spouse, with you getting angry with a child, with you getting a mug shot in jail. The good part of being a celebrity is strangers will irrationally bond with you and help you in ways they wouldn’t with friends and family members. There will be hundreds if not thousands of people who will give you moral support in your time of need. When Paul Walker was killed in a car crash, there must have been thousands of people who went to the site to pay their respects. Because celebrities showed up at the site, there was a lot of local and national news coverage of the event. That must have been a comfort to Paul Walker’s family.

When Tom Hanks disclosed he had diabetes, on national television, there were many kind words passed on to him in the media and in commentary by ordinary people. Tom Hanks has the money to have a doctor monitor is progress and a nutritionist who can help him with food choices. People like myself don’t have insurance so they can’t see a doctor often enough to stabilize their glucose levels or receive medication. There are no nutritionist helping us with our meals. People with court cases don’t have people following their cases in support. People aren’t there to offer insight to the mother who is struggling to choose family over career. In fact, many people don’t have the luxury to choose family over career. If they want to have food on the table, career and family have to be juggled, with a lot of sacrifices made to the family.

People in a media rich society like ours use magazines like People and In Touch a bit too much as barometers to our lives. Celebrities, no matter how small, can’t relate to the issues facing regular people. It’s like expecting a person of means to understand the plight of regular people. They might remember when they had less money, they may be able to empathize with people of less means, but they aren’t going to understand it on a ‘real’ level because money and means can cushion the blows of life. When there is a commercial for a medication and the ad asks you to see your doctor, many have to laugh because they don’t have a doctor. In crime shows the rich always have a lawyer they can call up at a moment’s notice. Regular people have to look for the bus bench or remember the jingle from afternoon television to find a lawyer. Magazines like People and In Touch make you want to feel a connection to the celebrities they cover, but no matter the struggles they have, if they are covered by the media the celebrities issues do not measure up to the issues regular people have. They have the means and resources to deal with issues while most of us don’t have access to resources that could help in our day to day lives.