Across The Media Universe: Papers, Please Edition
Pet Causes: Writes William M. Hartnett: "If you are a newspaper editor who has not been playing every single one of these [pet food recall] stories on your front page, you've been f'ing up, big time…Short of the very air that we breathe turning toxic, no other story affects a greater number or range of people than news about our pets." Take that, Pizzey.
Stop Being Polite And Start Getting Real: Hey, snobs – it may be time to start watching reality TV. According to Michael Hirschorn, you don't know what you're missing. He writes: "[R]eality TV is also the liveliest genre on the set right now. It has engaged hot-button cultural issues—class, sex, race—that respectable television, including the august 'CBS Evening News,' rarely touches. And it has addressed a visceral need for a different kind of television at a time when the Web has made more traditionally produced video seem as stagey as Molière."