This is an anatomy of how an Internet rumor spreads, and it must drive people like Padma Lakshmi insane.  Lakshmi is rumored to have joined Leelee Sobieski and Karolína Kurková in the latest celebrity pregnancy wave.

Or has she?

UPDATE:  Yes, she has.  On October 1st, Lakshmi’s representative confirmed that she is, in fact, pregnant.

The origins of the rumor

On September 28, JustJared–a celebrity gossip site–wrote a post that several unnamed sources revealed that Lakshmi was pregnant with Manu Nathan’s baby.  You can’t read the post on the site because it was taken down within hours after it went up, although here is a saved cache.

JustJared then took it down.  They weren’t quick enough, though:  some no-name linkbait celebrity gossip site AceShowBiz picked up on the pregnancy story and repeated it.

These sites recycle gossip to get the traffic of people looking for more information, even though you are only reading the same regurgitated line along with some biography fluff.

Here’s even one blogger who congratulates AceShowBiz for picking up on the unsubstantiated rumor even after JustJared took it back.  Ethically bankrupt bloggers like CelebTots.com don’t care if the rumors have been withdrawn at the source, as long as they have something to write about.  What if this causes real-life problems for Lakshmi?  CelebTots.com et al. don’t care.

After AceShowBiz.com, IndiaServer.com wrote that “reliable sources” reported the pregnancy, and next came some no-name rumor repeater SpiceZee again repeating.

All of this because JustJared wrote something–sourcing it to unnamed sources–and then took it down a short while later with no explanation.

Is Padma Lakshmi pregnant?  On October 1st, her representative confirmed that she is.  But it is too bad that people don’t care when they start Internet rumors and help them stick, even without flimsy evidence.  The insatiable lust for gossip must drive people like Lakshmi insane.

Continuing my clean-up project for old 2008 Tribeca photos, I recently unearthed a few that I thought were pretty special and made them the new Wikipedia article leads.  The old one is on the left, the new one is on the right:

Debbie Harry – (born July 1, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter and actress, most famous for being the lead singer for the punk rock/New Wave band Blondie. She has also had some success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she also performed and recorded as part of the Jazz Passengers. Harry has also engaged in an acting career with over 30 film roles and several television appearances to her credit.

Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini – (born Raymond Michael Mancino; March 4, 1961) is an Italian-American former boxer. He held the World Boxing Association lightweight championship for two years in the 1980s^. During a fight with Mancini, Duk Koo Kim sustained brained injuries in a prize fight with Mancini, and died.  Mancini went to the funeral in South Korea, but he fell into a deep depression afterwards. He has said that the hardest moments came when people approached him and asked if he was the boxer who “killed” Duk Koo Kim. Mancini went through a period of reflection, as he blamed himself for Kim’s death. In addition, Kim’s mother committed suicide four months after the fight, as did the bout’s referee, Richard Green, in July of 1983.

Enson Inoue – (born April 15, 1967) is an American mixed martial arts fighter. He has a professional MMA record of 11-8-0 as of April 16, 2004. He is the brother of Egan Inoue. Though relatively unknown among today’s MMA fanbase, Inoue holds a submission win (armbar) over former UFC Heavyweight Champion Randy Couture as featured in the documentary film Rites of Passage.

Gaius Charles – (born May 2, 1983) is an American stage, television and film actor best known for playing Brian “Smash” Williams on NBC’s Friday Night Lights.

These images are licensed Creative Commons and are part of a public art project.  Click here to see more.

lot of my photography from the last three years–in fact, most of it–is on a crashed external hard drive I bought because I was afraid of a computer crash.  I have to get it fixed, so I don’t have access to a lot of my old Tribeca shots from 2007 and most of 2008.  There were a couple of 2008 premieres I still had sitting on my laptop; in particular, Baby Mama and Redbelt.

Revisiting those photographs has been fun.  First, my Photoshop skills (I only Photoshop lighting and color) have improved.  Second, there were shots that at the time I didn’t realize were better than the original ones I uploaded.  Last, I was able to conform to the preferred style that has evolved on Wikipedia over the  years for a lead image head shot.

Here are a few things I learned about people’s tastes on Wikipedia for lead image biography shots:

• “Far-off gaze” is preferred over direct eye contact with the camera.  I think people like to feel like they are observing the subject unseen, a fantasy interrupted by the subject looking back at you.
• Head shots, not full body shots, go in the lead.
• Nothing too artistic; it should be clear and unadorned.  The viewer  should not be aware of the photographer in the shot.
• The image should be a rectangle, reaching down to their chest, and right above their head, and stretching to somewhere midway along the shoulders on each side.

Keeping those preferences in mind, below are old (left side) vs. new (right side) 2008 biography shots:

Kristen Bell – (born July 18, 1980) is an American actress. Although her first film role was an uncredited appearance in Polish Wedding, Bell previously acted in stage and musical productions. In 2001, she made her Broadway debut as Becky Thatcher in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. After re-locating to Los Angeles, Bell landed various television guest appearances and small film parts, before she gained fame as the title role on the critically acclaimed television show Veronica Mars from September 2004 to May 2007.

Faye Dunaway - (born January 14, 1941) is an American actress. She has won an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, and three Golden Globe Awards.

Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network (1976) after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Chinatown (1974). She has starred in a variety of other memorable films, including The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Little Big Man (1971), The Towering Inferno (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), Mommie Dearest (1981).

Randy Couture - (born June 22, 1963), also known as “The Natural” and “Captain America,” is an American actor and mixed martial artist, Greco-Roman wrestler, and former collegiate wrestler, and the former heavyweight champion of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Couture is one of only two UFC fighters to have held a championship title in two different divisions (heavyweight and light heavyweight) while in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (the other fighter being BJ Penn), as well as the only five-time champion in UFC history. Couture is a member of the UFC Hall of Fame, and many consider him to be the most popular fighter in MMA history.

Amy Poehler - (born September 16, 1971) is an American comedian and actress. She was a cast member on the NBC television entertainment show Saturday Night Live from 2001 through to 2008. In 2004, she starred in the film Mean Girls alongside Tina Fey, with whom she worked again in Baby Mama in 2008. She is currently the lead star of a new NBC show titled Parks and Recreation. She was nominated for the 2008 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.

These images are licensed Creative Commons and are part of a public art project.  Click here to see more.

I looked through my 2008 Tribeca Film Festival photos at the premiere of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler‘s Baby Mama and found some new shots to upload for the Creative Commons.

Liya Kebede – (born January 3, 1980) is an Ethiopian model who has appeared on the cover of US Vogue twice. According to Forbes, Kebede was the eleventh highest-paid model in the world.

Justin Theroux – (born August 10, 1971) is an American actor, screenwriter and director.

Sigourney Weaver – (born October 8, 1949) is an Academy Award-nominated American actress, best known for her roles as Lt. Ellen Ripley in the Alien film series and as Dana Barrett in the Ghostbusters movies.

Chevy Chase – (born October 8, 1943) is an American Emmy Award-winning comedian, writer, and television and film actor. Born into a prominent family, Chase quickly became a key cast member in the inaugural season of Saturday Night Live, where his Weekend Update skit quickly became a staple of the show. Chase is also well known for his portrayal of the character Clark Griswold in four National Lampoon’s Vacation films.

These images are licensed Creative Commons and are part of a public art project.  Click here to see more.

One week after the shocking suicide of rising star Lucy Gordon, the British actress’s death remains a mystery to the public.  Here is what is known:

• Lucy’s boyfriend, Jerome Almeras, a cameraman in his 40′s who found the starlet hanging from their ceiling when he woke up, has been cleared of any suspicion.    Initial reports were that the couple had been arguing.
• Gordon was in love with Almeras.  “She told me she was in love with her boyfriend,” said Michel Haddi, who photographed her for the Italian issue of Vanity Fair. “I told her she must like older men. She looked like a girl with a plan. She had everything to go for. I was going to visit her and her boyfriend in Paris.”
• She left two suicide notes.  One note was for her family; the other detailed how her remains and estate should be disposed of.
• Elizabeth Simpson, Gordon’s agent, is also in the dark about the death.  “My team and I are baffled and devastated by this wholly unexpected tragedy and our sympathy goes out to her family…”
• A close, unnamed friend of hers had recently committed suicide, and Gordon was deeply affected by the loss.
• Richard Gordon, Lucy’s father, also said the suicide “came out of the blue” and has not indicated whether the suicide note he received shed any light on her motives.

The public is left wondering why she would end such a promising, young life.

The most commonly-held belief is that she killed herself because she was distraught over her friend’s suicide.  This is such a let-down, if that’s the case.  Contemplating suicide is common, but as Gordon learned, it is selfish because of the devastation left behind to the ones who loved you.  For Gordon to experience that pain, and then not see or care that her actions would inflict an even worse pain upon her family and loved ones, would be a disappointment.  The man she loved found her hanging in the bedroom when he woke in the morning.  That is severe.

Hopefully a better answer will be forthcoming.

One of Wikipedia’s biggest photographing opportunities begins next week: the Tribeca Film Festival.  The festival has become a cherished New York City cultural institution (read Stephen Holden’s New York Times piece), and Wikimedia works with them closely, and is given extraordinary access, to photograph on the red carpet.

Click here to view all photos uploaded from the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival for use on Wikipedias around the world.

Mariah Carey and Robert De Niro at the 2008 TFF. This photo is found on the "Celebrity" Wikipedia article.

The following people are expected at various premieres during the festival, so look for new shots of them for their Wikipedia articles:

• Woody Allen
• Larry David
• Robert De Niro
• Uma Thurman
• Graydon Carter
• Ron Perelman
• Evan Rachel Wood
• Patricia Clarkson
• Hilary Duff
• Chevy Chase
• Sean Astin
• Bobby & Peter Farrelly (the “Farrelly Brothers”)
• Chris Cooper
• Geena Davis
• Andrew Lancaster
• Barry Levinson
• Elisabeth Shue
• Thomas Haden Church
• Aaron Sorkin
• Debbie Harry
• Ice-T
• Tommy Ramone
• Marky Ramone
• Fab 5 Freddy
• Legs McNeil
• Jim Jarmusch
• Josh Lucas
• Cheryl Hines
• Megan Ryan
• Danny Glover
• Kevin Kline
• Steve Buscemi
• Spike Lee
• Gary Coleman
• Scottie Pippen
• Aidan Quinn
• Campbell Scott
• Johnny Knoxville
• Diego Luna
• Gael Garcia Bernal
• Julianna Margulies
• Olivia Wilde
• John Patrick Amedori
• Desmond Harrington
• Matthew Broderick
• Sarah Jessica Parker
• Cynthia Nixon
• Swoosie Kurtz
• Ally Sheedy
• Charlie Rose
• Steven Soderbergh
• Sasha Grey
• Chris Santos
• Eric Bana
• Sam Rockwell
• Rachael Leigh Cook
• Tim Daly
• Matthew Modine
• Andrew Cockburn
• Rachel Dratch

Click here to see a gallery of the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival photographs used on Wikipedia biography articles.

I did not want to comment on the Michael Phelps smoking weed issue, mainly because I think he is an easy target.  I know people (two) who have hung out with Michael Phelps and his “crew” and they have said that the bunch of them are “arrogant” jerks.  Arrogance in anyone, be it Barack Obama or Madonna or Michael Phelps, is unattractive and one of the ugliest personality traits that a person can have, no matter what their accomplishments.  Why?  Because it diminishes the person on the receiving end of it, and that’s an uncouth way to treat anyone.

A quote in the News of the World story itself from a witness to Phelps’s behavior seemed to confirm what I’ve heard from friends who have been around him:

He didn’t know many people so you’d think he’d be a little shy. But he was loud, obnoxious and slamming beers from the get-go.  Every girl wanted a piece of him and every guy wanted to be his best buddy. He couldn’t get enough of all the attention.

I did not want to write about this because celebrities are torn down by jealous haters enough as it is.  But I definitely wanted to write about Whoopi Goldberg’s classic proclamation on The View, and I could not in good conscience share this without mentioning Phelps’s distasteful ‘I’m King of the World!’ obnoxiousness.  Check out Whoopi’s defense of Phelps, about the most eloquent I have seen:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx8JmivBQzo]
I met Whoopi briefly at the Proposition 8 rally in New York City, and did some photography with her.  Below are my Wikipedia photographs of her with a sign that she discussed on The View.

Head shot of Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg protesting California Proposition 8 in New York City

Revered actor Paul Newman appeared haggard in public recently.  According to his friend A.E. Hotchner, co-founder of Newman’s Own, he has cancer.  I went to his Wikipedia article and reflected on his varied career, and how the page’s editors treated his failing health.

Death is a difficult and challenging thing to write about on Wikipedia, especially in today’s media saturation.  How far should Wikipedia go in reporting details of a person’s declining health?  Should it just be a fact once it happens, or is it a fact as it is happening?

All of these questions are made more difficult by a familiar routine: the Celebrity Death Cycle.  This is how it goes:

1.  The celebrity, the studios, the media, the publicists, the agents and the rest of the Hollywood machinery tirelessly work to promote, and create public fascination with, the celebrity as they try to get their career moving.

2.  Years and years of things such as branding products with their name, selling their lifestyle, selling their sex appeal, selling their personalty and selling their talent ensue.

3.  As they get older, people reflect upon their career, television portrayals ensue, “Remember this person” specials air about their lives.

4.  Like every other human alive, this person eventually is taken ill, becomes disabled or has other things go wrong with them as they mature.

5.  Suddenly, everyone is supposed to drop their interest in the person and give them some privacy.

This cycle is so played out in the media that it is annoying.  Unless a person immediately succumbs to death with no warning, like Bernie Mac, the entire public is supposed to forget that they are conditioned to be interested in this person and their life.  Who they are dating, what they like to eat, what they like to wear, where they vacation, how they divorce and all the other topics that feed the celebrity media grist mill.

Death is a part of life; it’s one of the fundamentals.  When cultural touchstones are felled by disability, death, disease or drugs there is naturally widespread public interest.  It’s a moment not just in that persons’ life, but in everyone’s.

In fifty years the name could be Justin Timberlake instead of Paul Newman.  For the people who see Timberlake now in all his youthful, beautiful and talented glory, that day they learn an 80-something Timberlake might be dying will carry special significance.

So will Madonna’s.  So will Michael Jackson’s.

Instead, we are treated to sermonizing pundits decrying the lack of privacy for individuals who long ago made the decision to give up their privacy.  Suddenly, the lifetime of cultivated interest in their lives is replaced by people wagging their finger in disgust.  The same people who lap up details about their sex and dating lives with insatiable hunger (think Britney Spears) and by the media that feeds it.  Amusingly, when a column like this is written, it gives you all the details people want and rehashes the entire saga (like Tom Dorsey’s below).

Instead, let’s face reality:  When you invite massive public interest in you, expect the public to be interested through every cycle of your life.  I’m sure Dana Plato would have liked some privacy to deal with the mental illness that killed her; Lindsay Lohan, Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty would enjoy some privacy to handle their drug abuse; Alec Baldwin would enjoy some privacy handling his child custody.

Nobody calls for that, though.  It’s only when the problem is seemingly honorable we are all supposed to shut up and have some manners:

“This isn’t a new story. A couple weeks ago the media, especially the TV tabloid and entertainment magazines, along with that great grist mill called the Internet, pounced on Newman like ravenous tigers. [....] Another picture of a haggard-looking Newman at a charity event was plastered on the Web by Martha Stewart, apparently another friend. Some friends Newman has , but it looks like he posed for it, so what are you going to do?”  Tom Dorsey, Louisville Courier-Journal.

Not only do we get a column from Dorsey telling us what is news, we even get him second-guessing Newman’s friend and Newman himself as he lambastes the media for telling all the details that…he just told us.  Dorsey comes off looking like a self-righteous hypocrite.

I say we give Paul Newman a break. He has lived a wonderful life, giving so much to others through his Newman’s Own Foundation. He deserves privacy, just like we all do.  Lisa Fayed, About.com

Lisa should give us a break.  People simply want to know what is happening with someone they admire and feel they know.  Someone who defined an era for them.  To respond, “You’ll find out when he’s dead” is a callous thing to say to a public who have been conditioned to care about Newman.  I think Paul Newman and his family are more preoccupied with reflecting on far greater things than what the blogs are saying about what a family friend said about his condition.

“If Newman doesn’t want to tell us about his cancer (if he has cancer), why should he? As he has said so often about his private life, “It’s nobody’s business.”  Patricia Bosworth, Vanity Fair.

That statement is correct.  If he does not want to tell us, it is not our business.  My issue is with the people in the media who take us to task for even wondering, “How is he doing?”

“How is he doing?”  It is with that question in mind that Wikipedia’s editors have handled his health problem, and they have done a good job (as always).

From Boulder, Colorado’s Daily Camera (my former hometown newspaper):

Bonsall, 26, failed to appear at a July 16 court hearing in which prosecutors were ready to lay out a case that the 2000 Boulder High School graduate violated his probation stemming from an assault on his girlfriend, Lindsey Dunavan.

Bonsall, who was serving two years probation for the 2007 assault, faced charges that he had failed to pay for domestic-violence classes, missed daily breathalyzer tests and submitted a positive breath test — all conditions for his staying out of prison.

Ouch.