You're Obsolete, My Baby, My Poor Old-Fashioned Baby

Nikke Finke explores the ultimate form of celebrity image control, which is actually smart self-promotion to end-run the drive-by legacy media:

In a savvy bit of News Corp synergy, The Darjeeling Limited’s star Owen Wilson tonight at midnight airs his first interview since his September suicide attempt on MySpace.com. This was the result of a marketing brainstorm by Darjeeling’s studio Fox Searchlight, which approached fellow News Corp.-owned MySpace.com with the idea for the interview by Owen’s friend and Darjeeling director Wes Anderson. It’s a 5- to 10-minute pre-taped piece: Anderson and Wilson set the agenda themselves, and Anderson directed, edited and produced the whole thing. Hilariously, there’s a really angry article about this on ABC News, which just happens to employ both Barbara and Diane. Headlined, “Tell All Or PR Ploy?”, ABC News complains how fallen stars now have a far more appealing option than the ABC interview divas: “Cut the pesky journalist out of the mix and tell all, on their own terms, on the Internet. It’s the ultimate form of image control.” But ABC News defends the use of journalists for celebrity interviews, claiming the TV newsosaurs have integrity. What b.s.

I doubt Nicolas Sarkozy would argue with that.