Does Gossip Have a Skin Color?

(Newsweek.com) — While Sandra Bullock’s post-Oscar split from husband Jesse James may be the biggest celebrity news in the last month (or two), it’s probably not surprising it’s the adopted brown baby that really got the African-American blog sites going. The funny thing is, black Web sites such as MediaTakeOut.com, Bossip, and Young, Black and Fabulous have been following Bullock for years. Part of the reason is her connection to the black community. “They know about her support for victims of Katrina and Haiti so they care about what happens to her, which we thought about when we gave her coverage,” says Fred Mwangaguhunga, owner of the black entertainment site MediaTakeOut.com. But part of it is that black blogs look at the world differently than the often segregated mainstream. (How many black faces did you see on this year’s Vanity Fair Oscar issue?) “Sandra Bullock’s story about her marriage got a lot of pickup from our readers,” said Mwangaguhunga, whose site gets 700,000 hits per day and nearly 6 million views per month. “Her story of martial betrayal hit a nerve with our female readers for sure. It wasn’t a race thing because everyone can relate to that type of betrayal.”

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