The LAT's crack American Idol Showtracker investigative team was backstage at last night's taping, which introduced Fox's latest breakout star to nearly 30 million television viewers: young Ashley Ferl, the girl so memorably paralyzed by the spasms of tears elicited by Idol's resident Destroyer of Popular Music Sanjaya Malakar's eardrum-perforating performance. Reports the Times on how the show's producers came to identify the undeniable talent in their midst:

First things first: Who was the crying girl? After the show, I chatted with Idol's newest superstar, the crying girl, Ashley Ferl, aged 13, from Riverside. For some long minutes after the show, Ashley remained in a state of inconsolable sobbing, unable to choke out a single word. However, through an interpreter (her mother) we were eventually able to learn some facts about the young superstar.

The family, I was told, obtained tickets on a website to attend a taping of "Smarter Than a 5th Grader" a day passage that included not just the taping of the show itself, but also the dress rehearsal of either "Grader" or "Idol." The fates were kind, and the mother and daughter found their way to the "Idol" rehearsal, where Ashley's waterworks began. Her prowess was quickly brought to the attention of "Idol" producers who summoned the clan to a ringside seat of honor at the final taping.

Her powers of speech slowly returning, Ashley revealed that while she was on stage she had been thinking that "this was the coolest thing ever." Asked whom she was supporting in the competition she named "Sanjaya, Melinda, Gina and Jordin" as her picks, refusing to narrow her vote down to a single choice. All my journalistic powers of persuasion, cajoling, bullying and insistence that on her vote might turn the entire competition, that "Listen to reason, young Ferl, there can't be four American Idols," would not convince her to name a single favorite. To my every argument, she would only repeat her mantra, "All Four: Sanjaya, Melinda, Gina and Jordin." And so the race begins in earnest, with tears at every step of the way.

Their reporting makes no mention of whether or not Fox, never a network to leave any opportunity for exploitation unexplored, has invited Ferl back for tonight's result show, knowing that the superfan's unflagging support of four of the remaining eleven hopefuls leaves them with (at worst) a thirty-seven percent chance of capturing on camera the utter ruination of her childhood should one of her favorites be dismissed. The resulting paroxysm of sorrow will immediately become part of the "farewell montage" that plays each contestant off the stage and into the professional purgatory of the Idol Tour, where the girl's flood of uncontrollable tears will remind viewers about the lives they destroy each and every week with their phone calls and text messages.

• Who's That Girl? [LAT]
• Previously: Sanjaya Malakar And The Death Of Music [Defamer]