ETP Staff |
Posted Tuesday April 10, 2007 at 05:40 PM
"My baby's gonna be coming home": TMZ was first with the news that DNA tests have confirmed that Larry Birkhead is the father of Dannielynn, the sole living offspring of Anna Nicole Smith. Birkhead's rival Prince Frederic von Anhalt (born Hans-Robert Lichtenberg) wished Birkhead good luck with the baby, while Birkhead and Howard K. Stern hugged it out for the cameras. Stern is less concilitary towards the media. Let the fallout commence. [TMZ]
- In related news, who broke the story? Comparing the timestamps it seems like TMZ by a hair, posting at 3:45 ET at what looks to be the second that Birkhead announced the results. TMZ hosts the (obviously subsequently added) footage from MSNBC, which unwisely left a chryon reading "Biological Father of Anna Nicole's daughter to be revealed shortly" on right through to Birkhead's announcement...and then for a full two seconds after it before switching to the updated "Larry Birkhead is the father" version. Hey, in CableNewsWorld, that stuff matters. They should have learned from Fox and had something like "Larry Birkhead Dannielynn's Father?" Meanwhile, the NYT doesn't deign to report the breaking news on its front page, but does carry the Reuter's report, filed at 4:43 pm EST. TMZ had posted eleven additional posts by that time. Not a joke. [TMZ, MSNBC]
- Much ado about nothing? Abovethelaw's David Lat draws attention to an article in the Legal Times claiming that Dannielyn doesn't stand to inherit much from the estate of J. Howard Marshall, the former husband of Anna Nicole Smith. Ironies abound. [Legal Times via Abovethelaw]
- How to set bestseller lists on fire: For her paperback release in June, Cosmopolitan editor Kate White is taking the unusual step of renaming her saucy self-help book, "How To Set His Thighs On Fire" to a substantially less incendiary (but still saucy) title, "You On Top." Why risk wasting all the advertising and promotion already invested in the book by changing its title a full year after publication? Um, to sell books? [Radar]
- Perez Hilton to be guest beauty blogger for Glamour on Wednesday: Fashion Don'ts across America quake in their flip-flops and tube top dresses. [Glamour]
- Birds do it, bees do it — so come on Timesers, won't you please do it? The "it" in question is GET THE METER RIGHT WHEN YOU ARE RIFFING ON A REALLY WELL-KNOWN LYRIC! Even an educated flea knows that. [NYT]
- Kinda Knut, Baby: Slate asks the question "How cute is Knut?" (because that's what they do), wondering whether the world is really being made better by the polar bear mania currently gripping Germany (and covers of Vanity Fair). According to Slate's Anne Applebaum, Knut arouses deep feelings because he fits into "into narratives about pollution, endangered species, and... global warming," symbolizing progress in those areas — rightly or wrongly. According to ETP, Knut arouses deep feelings because he fits into narratives about cuteness. But maybe that's just us. [Slate] Related: Joe Jackson's version. [BN.com]
- UPDATE: We are as good at headlines as Howard K. Stern is at fathering babies: Sometimes our eyes play tricks on us, and today we TOTALLY saw CNN where the screengrab was actually MSNBC. That' s just silly, and we apologize to CNN for saying that they are the Howard K. Stern of chyrons and to MSNBC for failing to acknowledge that they are the Howard K. Stern of chyrons. ETP regrets the error, and feels sufficiently stupid. The imporant thing is, Dannielynn has a father.
