[...] In the last 10 years, the people who have been rewarded with the highest salaries have been awarded for doing the most trivial work: the male and female divas, the people who are so good at artificial empathy. And when you start doing celebrity and scandal and sex, not only is it bad of itself, it affects the larger populace.
They're doing this because they're getting signals from those great patriots who poll the American people to find out what the American people want to know. They find out that the American people want to be entertained and they send back signals to do fluffier, warmer, more endearing reporting. As that happens, the national debate gets more trivial. Foreign policy gets played down. The rest of the world becomes a place we don't need to know about. [...]
David Halberstam in Suzy Hansen's Salon.com article "Why America Napped," October 1, 2001
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