Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Miss Universe Organization
Miss USA 2011 Alyssa Campanella and Lil Jon at the 2011 Miss USA Pageant at Planet Hollywood on June 19, 2011.
Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012 | 9:54 a.m.
More arts and entertainment
- Check out Robin Leach's VegasDeLuxe.com for more celebrity and A&E coverage.
- Las Vegas Sun's Muhammad Ali-Lou Ruvo special section.
Jeff Timmons, 2010 Miss USA Rima Fakih and 2011 Miss USA Alyssa Campanella attend the official 2011 Miss USA Pageant after-party at Chateau Nightclub & Gardens at the Paris on June 19, 2011.
Expect an official announcement this week that the 2012 Miss USA Pageant will air as always planned on NBC from Planet Hollywood on June 3. Additionally, NBC will announce this year’s pageant hosts within the next 48 hours.
Confusion about the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants being dropped by NBC began with a false report from an obscure website. “Totally fake -- absolutely untrue,” blasted Miss Universe Organization President Paula Shugart. “It’s very difficult being in business negotiations with many people -- including those in Las Vegas -- that totally incorrect reports of network problems went global.”
The false story, however, developed even further as it was reported elsewhere and then by pageant fans on Twitter. It prompted a flurry of calls around the world as Planet Hollywood officials had to be calmed by executives for Donald Trump, who owns both pageants in partnership with NBC.
The fake viral news spread further with nasty messages blaming Miss Universe winners for the so-called New York TV programming decision.
Paula emailed me Sunday from South Africa when the story broke, saying “absolutely ridiculous” and promising on her return to New York headquarters to elaborate. “For the record, it’s absolutely untrue -- absolutely false,” she told me this morning. “A simple call to check the facts would have gotten the truth -- hopefully this will now end it. It ran without anybody calling us. ”
I’ve learned that the NBC story is completely off target. In fact, NBC is working on expanding its Miss USA and Miss Universe programming coverage.
I was reliably told: “It’s not the first time this one-room website has posted inaccurate stories. They even make up fake press releases. They are fanatical pageant fans tracking beauty news all over the world, but it’s wild, sensational and untrue. Andy Cohen from Bravo hosted last year, so they just made up a story that Miss USA was dropped by NBC and picked up by its Bravo cable network. In fact, NBC wants to have Miss USA programming everywhere it can.”
This is now the second time this year that erroneous reports about the Miss USA Pageant on the Strip have circulated. The first report was that Las Vegas had lost the pageant over location promotional funding and that it was moving to Florida after a bidding battle from Mississippi. When Paula was here Jan. 29 for the Miss Nevada USA Pageant won by Jade Kelsall at the Pearl in the Palms, Vegas DeLuxe reported that Miss USA would remain in Las Vegas this year.
Long-terms deals are in place for the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants to remain on NBC, with Miss USA also expected to remain in Las Vegas. 2011 Miss USA Alyssa Campanella of California will be here to crown her successor June 3.
Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.
Follow Robin Leach on Twitter at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.
Follow Vegas DeLuxe on Twitter at Twitter.com/vegasdeluxe.
Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter at Twitter.com/VDLXEditorDon.
When journalists just sit in their offices scouring the web for anything and then believe in a news item when they see it, then there's trouble ahead. That's what happened when a few months ago, a fake report that Miss Universe will be held in Bahamas went viral. After seeing red faces all over the beauty pageant community, including that of a supposed reliable website called Globalbeauties, so many people were duped again in believing that Miss Universe will be held in Jakarta. Even a National Organization was led to believe that the news was true.
Internet is a powerful and useful tool, yet many people are bound to abuse it. Internet is teeming with false information posing as verified facts. That is why a sizable percentage of Americans still believe they never landed on the moon or that President Barack Obama is a Muslim. At the height of Health Care Bill, many disinformation was spread through the internet for many gullible Americans are willing to believe what they read on the Internet without the need to verify its veracity.
That is why Missosology is saddened by the journalistic approach of The Las Vegas Sun http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/feb...
Writer Robin Leach is virtually saying that Missosology.Org spread a viral news that NBC dropped Miss USA and Miss Universe. That is not true. Such news story NEVER appeared in www.missosology.org - the very website he linked from his news article. Mr. Leach read a "news story" posted on Missosology.Info, the official forum of Missosology.Org http://www.missosology.info/forum/viewto... Do we need to explain to Mr. Leach that a forum is a place where anything and everything can be posted? Why Mr. Leach published a story that he saw in the forum and why he never bothered to verify the story before he run it? Why would he point finger to us when we never published that story here at www.missosology.org? Why would he call us missosology.COM? Why would he describe us as an obscure Indonesian website when we are not?
That is because Mr Leach just sits in his office scouring the web for anything and then believe in a news item when he sees it.