I would disagree with the venerable PR “blog-father” Peter Himler who says the Old Media still beats New Media on a good day. It’s true that the Twittersphere “lights up,” as Peter writes, when the NYT dolls out a big scoop. But what about when Twitter scoops the media?

Enter Paris Hilton. The party girl, the sex tape, then the jail time, then the public act of contrition, then the cocaine in her Chanel bag, which she claimed was not her Chanel bag, except for yesterday, when the news broke that the aforementioned Chanel bag actually appeared in a Twitter photo she posted to her account….one month ago! Radar Online, my trusted New Media source for all things celebrity, claims it could be a “stunning blow to her claim that the purse in which cops found cocaine did not belong to her and she borrowed it from a girlfriend.”

Not that the NYT should ever be devoting resources to uncovering the truth about Paris Hilton’s claims with regard to her cocaine habit, but the role of social media sites in stories like this is important. In essence, we all leave a digital trail, and posting comments to Twitter and photos to Facebook is sort of like leaving your diary spread open in the high school cafeteria. Which means anyone can break news. Or become newsworthy.

Poor Paris. She really does need a PR firm, as does Lindsay Lohan. I wonder when the talent management for these stars will start to realize that at least some of the talent has no business managing their own content feed. It’s for their own good.