by Zack Mandell

Created on: September 27, 2010

The reason one million dollars should not be wasted on Paris Hilton's story is due to the fact her account is insignificant. Her stay in jail was extremely short-lived because of her family's wealth. Of course she received some special treatment while there. Of course she had to be isolated from other inmates for security purposes. Any insight she has to give regarding her experience would not apply to the everyday citizen facing the same scenario. Answering "No" to the central question of this debate is done so from the perspective of an NBC decision-maker. It would not be in their best interest to spend this mound of cash on

Paris Hilton giving a brief, ambiguously-answered interview. There are much more serious issues going on in the world that warrant the attention of the news-watching citizens.

Aside from NBC receiving a large number of viewers, the best result that could come out of this would be a few young girls deciding that they do not want to end up in jail. More importantly, such a large sum of money can and should be directed at other important causes. Giving a socialite the space to appear remorseful for all of 10 minutes, while appearing perfect in terms of make-up and clothing, is not worth a million dollars. The worst part: the remorse  part of it isn't guaranteed. In 2007 CNN was the first to get an interview with Paris following her short-lived prison stint, which was the result of driving on a suspended license. The heiress told Larry King that she had never used drugs and wasn't a big drinker. She also said that she felt her incarceration was unwarranted.  Taking those statements into consideration at the present time, it's laughable Paris would say those things on the air. CNN may have gotten a lot of viewers that night, but these people were probably giving the "yeah, right" look to their screens.  The interview wasn't a gem in TV history, to put it lightly.

Sadly, Paris Hilton would not benefit from one million dollars. She is already worth much more than that, and such a large payday would just be an expenditure by NBC in return for viewer volume. If the recipient of the money was going to take the funds to try and turn their life around, more could be said for the "Yes" side of the issue. However, since the person in question is Paris Hilton, it's obvious that a million dollars isn't a lot to her.  It might be added to her fashion fund, or if we got lucky, it'd get donated to an animal organization. Unfortunately, the possibility of her donating the money to a charity cannot be used as a valid factor in evaluating, and that takes away from any points allotted to "Yes" answer.

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