The Associated Press reported Friday that it instituted a week-long ban on news relating to celebrity hotel heiress Paris Hilton beginning Feb. 19.
While the news agency admitted nothing "too out-of-the-ordinary happened in the Hilton universe" during the self-imposed blackout, it did not report on the ejection of one of Hilton's friends from a birthday party held at a Beverly Hills, Calif., restaurant or her trip to promote her fragrance in Puerto Rico.
The AP reported it lifted the ban prior to reporting on Hilton's Feb. 27 arrest for driving with a suspended license. The agency reasoned that had the ban still been in effect, it would have likely reported the arrest because it was "an offense that could conceivably lead to jail time because she may have violated conditions of a previous sentence."
Various news media, including the New York Observer, reported on the agency-wide ban after someone leaked an internal memo on the idea.
Lloyd Grove, a former columnist for the New York Daily News, told the AP he adhered to a similar self-imposed ban on news about Hilton during the two years prior to the discontinuation of his column last October. While Grove told the AP that he imposed the ban in a bid to get publicity for himself, he said the media's coverage of Hilton is, "in the worst sense, the best expression of the maxim that no bad deed goes unrewarded in our pop culture"
