Mika Brzezinski's BlackBerry is currently receiving new messages at the rate of about one a minute. Some come from friends and colleagues, but most are from complete strangers. To nearly all, she is a heroine.
"I had one woman send me an e-mail and she told me she was weeping tears of joy that someone finally took a stand," the TV news anchor said.
Brzezinski's achievement was to raise a defiant fist in the face of one of the most powerful forces in the modern world -- celebrity. Working for US cable news channel MSNBC, Brzezinski decided last week to refuse to read a news story about Paris Hilton.
To the amazement of viewers of the news show Morning Joe, she simply looked into the camera and apologized for the decision to put the hotel heiress' release from jail at the top of news, ahead of an important political story linked to the war in Iraq.
"I didn't choose it," she said of the Hilton story.
When her cohost Joe Scarbo-rough laughed at her words, she simply refused to read the story.
"No," she said, "I hate this story and I don't think it should be the lead."
Then she put the Hilton story down and began to read the rest of the script, opening with the phrase "To the news now."
The moment was the first of repeated refusals by Brzezinski to read the Hilton story throughout the show. It has made her a heroine to people across the US and around the world. Clips of her refusal have spread like wildfire all over the Internet, especially via the video-sharing Web site YouTube, where the pictures of her shredding the paper that the story was written on have received hundreds of thousands of hits.
Many viewers have also left comments backing Brzezinski -- "Finally, someone has come to their senses," wrote one YouTube viewer.
Other media organizations are also now refusing to cover the Hilton story. At the same time as Brzezinski was making her stand, gossip magazine US Weekly was declaring its latest issue "100 per cent Paris-free."
Brzezinski said her actions were not planned before last Thursday, but it was at that mor-ning's news meeting that she had just felt that she could not stand silent as the Hilton story was put on the top of the news agenda.
"My cohost and I had problems with the story at 6am, when we had our first morning meeting. I let my cohost Joe know and he told me to go with my gut. I want to thank him for his support in that," she said.
She certainly did go with her instincts. Though Scarborough knew Brzezinski was going to make a stand, he probably did not know exactly how far she would push it.
"We were making a statement on our show. I hope making it will start to change something. It became like a piece of theater," Brzezinski said.
After her initial refusal to read the Hilton story, Brzezinski was faced with the same news list at the next hourly bulletin. Hilton was still stop of the list.
"My producer Andy Jones is not listening to me," she said, looking at the script and making the highly unusual move of naming an off-screen TV executive.
Then she did the unthinkable.
"Do you have a lighter? Give me that lighter!" she said to another journalist at the news desk.
She then grabbed a cigarette lighter which she used to try to set fire to the paper on which the Hilton story was written. The lighter did not work properly and was snatched away by a guest, who told her: "Easy, easy."
But the story went unread for a second time.
Not that the show's producers were put off. They tried for a third time to put the Hilton story at the top of the bulletin. And for a third time Brzezinski refused to read it.
"I'm about to snap," she told viewers.
Then she got up and walked over to a paper shredder in the studio and calmly shredded the story.
It was a piece of spectacular TV drama. Her move, which had the blessing of Scarborough, could easily have been a career-ending disaster. But for the moment at least it looks as if she has got away with it and maybe even succeeded in making her point -- that the news media is so saturated with celebrity gossip that serious issues are not getting discussed.
"It's a big problem. I would hope for this to become a bigger conversation that we have to have honestly. We need to have an open discussion about what is news and what is not," she said.
She said her bosses have reacted well so far but that she is still a little nervous.
"I don't think I am in trouble. But I am in meetings all day today so I guess I will find out later. I'll let you know," she laughed.
For the moment it looks as if she is safe. Many other journalists, including some of the biggest names in the business, have rallied to her cause.
Dan Rather, a former news anchor and one of the most respected names in US broadcasting, has invited her to lunch. Rather recently caused headlines by lamenting publicly how soft-focused TV news had become.
"I think that the reaction in the media has been the most hearten-ing," Brzezinski said.
"People in the business are saying enough is enough," she said.
The move could also thrust Brzezinski into the spotlight herself, though it is a place that she is used to -- her father, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was former US president Jimmy Carter's national security adviser.
She has carved out a distinguished TV career since 1990, including a stint as the principal reporter for CBS at Ground Zero in New York after Sept. 11.
Perhaps dealing with such weightier stories explains why Brzezinski could not bring herself to report the Hilton story last week. It occurred at the same time as Republican Senator Richard Lugar was attacking President George W. Bush's position on the Iraq war. Yet MSNBC's producers wanted to give the Hilton story precedence.
"It was not a story. My gut was telling me that," she said.
Nor does she regret her move.
"No regrets," she said defiantly. "Absolutely not."
It remains to be seen whether Brzezinski's lone voice in the wilderness will become a chorus of meaningful dissent in other newsrooms in the US and around the world.
Hilton was still dominating the celebrity magazines, the tabloids and many of the cable channels last weekend. Larry King had interviewed her live on CNN.
But Brzezinski thinks she may have started something.
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