Kind of Embarrassing

Anyone who reads Excélsior regularly has probably noticed the enthusiasm with which the paper has been pushing the telenovela Las Aparicio, which runs on its sister network Cadenatres and evidently has to do with a lot of devious women in the same family. It's been going on for weeks, but the intensity of the cheerleading seems to be ratcheting up. Yesterday's front page had a big picture of Mexican movie actress Marina de Tavira, the motivation being that she is considering joining the show. Today's paper had a 1,700-word fluff piece on the show. Frankly, it's more amusing than anything, and I do understand that competing against Televisa and TV Azteca may require an unorthodox PR campaign. But 1,700 words about a show that no one really cares about? While elements of the paper are fantastic, I'm not sure I've ever seen Excélsior run 1,700 words of news analysis about, say, the nation's tax code, or the revamped Federal Police. Its comparative obsession with Las Aparicio, which calls to mind a mother's crusade to get her teenage called up to the varsity side his sophomore year, even if just to sit on the bench, is a bit embarrassing.