The rise of infotainment and tabloid TV news reflects popular acceptance of the summons to turn news into play -- which people are willing to do when they have given up on public life.
Joshua GamsonNov 19, 2001
Way back in the days when Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan were still an item, an earnest news reporter from a local television station called with a request: He wanted me, as a media critic, to comment on camera about the appearance of Tonya Harding's breasts on A Current Affair. I declined, and not because I had anything against either Ms. Harding or her breasts, or even the tabloids. Stoically pushing aside the temptation of minor celebrity, I simply saw the request to criticize the phenomenon as a veiled invitation to feed it.