The world was recently horrified by the story of a woman named Kerry Campbell who proudly described (and showed on video) her injections of her eight-year-old beauty pageant-bound daughter with botox. After investigations by Child Protective Services, the mother came forward, saying her name was actually Sheena Upton and that she had been paid $10,000 by a tabloid to pretend to inject her daughter with botox. The actual truth is now unclear; some claim that the video of the woman clearly shows her injecting her daughter with something, while there also appears to be testimony from the UCLA Medical Center that claims there is/was no botox in the eight-year-old's system.
At some point the question becomes not whether or not the woman tried to paralyze her daughter's face, but why all of this is of interest to readers or viewers. Are we happy that she didn't actually do this to her daughter, or are we annoyed that someone came up with this idea for media attention, or do we feel something else? How different is agreeing to pretend to be a horrible person on Good Morning America from actually being that person? One of the biggest problems with this story for me is that it proves how little news can be trusted. If, indeed, someone can get everyone to believe a fake scandal for only $10,000, what stops any "news" group from doing it?
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