On Friday afternoon, Slate featured a byline we’re used to seeing only in Us Weekly’s editor’s letter. It was that of Janice Min, and she wanted to explain why her celeb weekly went Paris-free in this week’s issue. It was a great marketing coup; she turned an obvious PR play into an opportunity to explain why it wasn’t just an obvious PR play, making the PR play more obvious.

Still with us?

Writes Min:

That morning, 24 hours after Paris Hilton was released from a California jail, Us Weekly, the magazine I edit, made headlines for its decision to ban Hilton coverage from its current issue. Instead, the magazine made room for 12 pages of Hollywood baby pictures. In some ways, the decision to ban Paris was a pragmatic one: Her release occurred too late during our Monday night close for us to offer much reporting on it, and we hadn’t landed a post-prison interview. (When Hilton’s attorney asked Us to offer a bid to interview the heiress, our request to make it a charitable donation to an organization such as MADD was rejected.) But I also sensed an ever-mounting public frustration—”Please let me off this ride!”—with the Paris story. It’s a feeling shared unanimously by the Us staff, and it led me to believe that—at least for this week and maybe for longer—the absence of Paris Hilton is, perhaps, the best way to reflect readers’ interests.

Totes cute, right?

Except, well, do we need to go over this or this or this again? Tune in next week, when there’s a new side of the mouth to speak from.

Original post by perez and software by Elliott Back