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Congratulations National Enquirer. You’re the first media outlet to go way past too far and post up a photo of Whitney Houston laying in her casket. There’s a thin line between exposure and exploitation and National Enquirer’s tightrope walking that very line.

I refuse to link the photo, so you’ll have to Google it yourself. The disturbing photo of Whitney at the Whigham Funeral Home in Newark, NJ before her burial made the front page of the March 5th issue of the mag. I didn’t want to look at it myself, but when I did, I was filled with shock, disgust then sadness.

National Enquirer has always been that one entertaining magazine that you pick up in the line at the grocery store and thumb through while you’re waiting to be checked out. Always filled with the juiciest gossip that made you feel as if it couldn’t be true, you had to take everything you read with a grain of salt.

Each and every time someone of stature passes away, media outlets try to be the first to break the story and keep you posted on what’s happening. As a matter of fact, you can say that about pretty much any subject under the entertainment umbrella. Being the first to break a story gets you respect and that’s what we all want when we post up our stories. Well, that and hits.

But there is something that weighs more than hits and sales within the entertainment industry and that’s integrity. Most journalists know what it is to have journalistic integrity but most gossip rags, just don’t. And neither do they care to have it because they’re all about the shock value and they don’t care how low they have to stoop. Letting the world view Whitney in a way that none of us want to see her is just sickening.

Although I think the National Enquirer should be burned to the ground, the blame shouldn’t be solely placed on them. Someone within Whitney’s inner circle had to take this photo because it was an extremely private viewing. This was the time where friends and family members say their goodbyes to the fallen diva. I’m disgusted by whoever decided that taking this photo was tactful and further disgusted by the National Enquirer’s desire to publish deceased celebrities for sales.

Sadly enough, as long as people are buying into it and these type of magazines are offering big bucks for exclusive shots, this type of reporting will forever exist.

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