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Aaron Carter
Post by teachermom on Sept 20, 2006, 11:47pm

I don't think that Aaron Carter's news about his engagement to his Playboy playmate fiance are appropriate for a website about child actors. There are too many kids who read this site, and look up to each other. I don't think it is appropriate "news". What do you think?
Re: Aaron Carter
Post by admin on Sept 25, 2006, 12:36pm


Quote:
I don't think that Aaron Carter's news about his engagement to his Playboy playmate fiance are appropriate for a website about child actors. There are too many kids who read this site, and look up to each other. I don't think it is appropriate "news". What do you think?

Thanks for sharing your opinion.

One minor point - the Young Star News site is not only about child actors. It also includes news about child athletes, musicians, and other exemplary youth. Although we generally stop coverage of the stars when they reach 18, we do still report significant events dealing with stars who are slightly older than 18 years but were popular prior to turning 18. Aaron Carter is an 18-year-old former child popstar.

That being said . . .

Some people may find the fact that Aaron Carter got engaged to a former Miss Teen USA and former Playboy Playmate to be inappropriate in and of itself. However, we don't believe that the mere mention of it factually and journalistically will in any way damage the kids who read the YSN site.

If there are kids who look up to Aaron Carter as a role model, then his reputation as a "proper" role model is only enhanced or damaged by his own actions. News reports about his actions are not what enhance or diminish his role-model status, it is his actions themselves that have an effect.

While we regret that there may be people who find Carter's choice of a girlfriend/fiancee to be objectionable - and that it may, in some people's eyes, make him less of a role model - that is not the doing of Young Star News nor of any of the other entertainment or news sources who likewise report the story.

There is certainly nothing that goes beyond a 'G' rating in reporting such news, and the mere mention of it as an objective news item is harmless, in our opinion. Had Carter got engaged to a woman who was not a former Playmate, we would still have reported it, much as we reported Frankie Muniz's engagement. Who Carter chose to propose to was his choice, not ours.

We have likewise reported on child stars and recently-former-child-stars who had run-ins with the law or - citing a recent example - had a car accident while DUI. Here again, these youngsters may be poor role models for younger child stars, but it is those stars' doing, not our reporting, that is the issue.

Hopefully the young stars of today have caring parents whose influence will lead them down the straight path, and the mere reporting of a former child star getting engaged to a former Playmate, or a former young star crashing his car while drunk, will have little or no effect on those youngsters. As the proverb says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is older he will not stray from it."

As one can see from some of our latest news items, recently two young former child stars unfortunately perished, way too young and before their times. Daniel Smith, Nicole's son, and Pablo Santos, both passed away recently. Certainly I don't think anyone would say that we should not have published the news about Daniel Smith's demise simply because his mom was a former Playmate. Unfortunately, in the real world, not all news is good news.

By the way, Aaron has called off the engagement. We reported on that as well.

Again, thank you for sharing your opinion.
Re: Aaron Carter
Post by asj1983 on Sept 29, 2006, 6:44pm

There was a singer I heard of only once. She put out an album when she was approximately ten years old. Years later when I got on the 'net I went looking for information about her - and discovered that she had suffered from anorexia for many years before contracting an infection she was too weak to fight off.

A child actress, who starred in a film I love very much, became a heroin addict and died of an overdose when she was twenty-one.

Another child actress disappeared from TV and film in 1980. I have searched and searched to find out where she is and what she is doing, but there is no news at all.

This may not be 100% relevant to the topic, but from my point of view knowing is better than not knowing, even if what I find out is not what I hope to hear.