There have been a growing number of interesting news articles in recent years on the topic of celebrity, philanthropy and development. Here is a selection from old and new:
New Left Review May 1960: Religion of the Celebrity
New Left Review July 1964: The Celebrity Syndrome
Forbes, March 2000: On Celebrity Foundations
The Guardian, July 2005: George Monbiot’s Critique of Bono and Bob during the G8
Time Magazine, Dec 2005: The Year of Charitainment
Paul Theroux in the New York Times, Dec 2005: The Rock Star’s Burden
The Independent, Oct 2006: A useful insider’s view on celebrity field trips for development charities.
The Guardian, August 2007: Claire Lewis (Oxfam International Artist Liaison) explains on celebrity ambassadors.
The Independent, January 2009: Paul Vallely on Celebrity Diplomacy
LSE hosted an interesting public discussion the podcast of which is available here, scroll down until you get to the event on the 5th February 2009.
The Sunday Times, Oct 2009: How Hollywood Finds its Charitable Causes
Bill Easterly’s blog April 2010: Praising Shakira’s aid interventions
The Guardian, April 2010: Bob Geldof’s response to the Starsucker’s film. The back story and his full response to that programme is visible here.
The Guardian, April 2010: John Hilary responds to Bob Geldof generating 389 comments
The Economist, May 2010: On the dangers and procedures of celebrity philanthropy
The Guardian, Sept 2010: Marina Hyde’s critique of Bono generates 153 comments.
The Guardian, Sept 2010: Dorian Lynskey defends Bono generating 326 comments.
The New York Times, Dec 2010: More on the celebrity and philanthropy industry.
The New York Times, Dec 2010: Bill Easterly on the failures of Bono, but achievements of Lenon.
The Guardian, Dec 2010: A critique of celebrity. Curiously this comes out a day before the podcast below but without links to it. Joined up thinking? Still it generates nearly 100 comments
The Guardian, Dec 2010: A great podcast on celebrity and development
The build up to the podcast is available here, and a summary of it, and the commentary it provokes is available here.
The Guardian, March 2011: The launch of the Finding Frames by Darnton and Kirk with commentary.
The National Journal, April 2011: List of the most 20 politically effective celebrities
Third Sector, June 2012: Short report on an IDS survey of responses to UK advocacy
The Guardian, June 2012: Marina Hyde on celebrity advocacy based on the findings of an IDS survey; >250 comments.
A short article on academic celebrities from Hazel Taylor.
The Guardian, January 2014: Alain de Botton writes in favour of celebrity advocacy
The Guardian, June 2014: WWF and celebrity campaigning success in Virunga
The Independent, August 2014: Summarising findings from some of this fellowship’s research
The Guardian, June 2015: Secret Aid worker, with odd field stories, and some useful practical advice
Celebrity and Development 