When a Big4 Queen gets crowned, its news. She grabs headlines and she creates a lot of attention. It is of no wonder then that Valerie Hernandez, Jamie Herrell, Rolene Strauss and Paulina Vega are all in the front pages of the major newspapers in their respective countries when they won. Paulina Vega’s recent victory got a superstar treatment in Colombia that she basically sidelined the news about the victory of the leftists in Greek elections. Never mind that the latter could have global economic repercussions. After all, Paulina wearing the new DIC crown is a breathe of fresh air in what is usually bleak headlines in newspapers nowadays.
Back in December, South Africa’s leading newspaper, The Times, had put more emphasis on the victory of Rolene Strauss. This despite the fact that there was a hot news about the previous president that could actually be charged in an international court for sanctioning black ops of American intelligence in his own country. Indeed, it’s hot news when South Africa won its second Miss World crown (the other crown was won after the real winner so it doesn’t really count as much as really winning the crown) and the first in a post-apartheid era. The news was made even sweeter by the fact that South Africa was then celebrating its 20 years of democracy.
Meanwhile, news about the corruption hearings in the Philippines were sideswiped when Jamie Herrell won the country’s second Miss Earth crown. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, the country’s leading newspaper, splashed its frontpage with the photo of Jamie holding her crown while the outgoing queen, Alyz Henrich is about to put her sash. All other news, mostly negative, were relegated into the bottom half of the newspaper.
The same treatment was given to Valerie Hernandez when she won the Miss International crown. In an another case of 2nd victory, Valerie’s image took most of the front page of the Metro newspaper which was presented to Valerie herself when she returned back to Puerto Rico.
Indeed, a Big4 victory does steal headlines. This is one of the many things that set Miss Universe, Miss World, Miss Earth and Miss International apart from other pageants. By grabbing headlines, the Big4 Pageants clearly earns respect, admiration and interest from the general public. It somehow shows that at least for a day, the news world stops and pays attention to something that is good and beautiful.
