Selling Sleaze

[stickdog]

http://slate.msn.com/id/2095441

Selling Sleaze: A User's Guide
Ten ways to rationalize the publication of infidelity rumors.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Thursday, Feb. 12, 2004, at 4:15 PM PT

The Fourth Estate is not interested in petty gossip and unfounded rumors. We report on matters of high policy pertaining to the public interest. Consequently, the rumor of a sexual liaison between a certain presidential candidate and a female intern with the Associated Press wouldn't ordinarily be the sort of thing we'd stoop to publish or broadcast. Sadly, however, overriding considerations compel us to share this information with the public:

1) It's a press story. "Welcome to Reliable Sources, where we turn a critical lens on the media. I'm Howard Kurtz. Should the media report unsourced rumors about THAT WOMAN JOHN KERRY'S BEEN BANGING BEHIND TERESA'S BACK? How much coverage of a candidate's private life is too much? Here to discuss this with us are Tom Rosenstiel and Bob Guccione."

An imaginative new variation on this approach is to omit the ethics angle entirely and merely speculate about whether the press will report on the rumor, as if it were some other beast entirely from oneself.

2) It's an Internet phenomenon. The people sharing rumors about John Kerry's sex life by e-mail and on Weblogs constitute a vital new subculture—a new news medium, if you will, one that doesn't play by the old rules. This cries out for sociological analysis.


Much more. Nice article on some of the excesses of the press.