Cringely sez …
Actually the press in general, if I may paraphrase from your post,
"more and more celebrate celebrity". They didn't do this by choice;
people used to WANT hard news (from which came "responsible journalism").
And then the hard news got too hard to take, and people decided they
wanted fluff instead of fact from the media, and that's how news turned
into People Magazine…. (BTW: Has anyone out here ever figured out what
Zsa Zsa Gabor ever did that caused her to become a "Celebrity"?…)
And magazines themselves (especially the glossy ones which cost a
fortune to print) are driven by their advertisers, not their readers
(Trust me on this; I used to write "how-to" and product-review articles
and I know firsthand how often the word "not" gets edited out of "This
Product Did Not Meet Expectations" when the Product's manufacturer buys a
full-page ad that month): Would you seriously expect a magazine so boot-
licking as to be named "Windows" to review a computer that makes the
fastest Windows-based computers look like slugs?
Tell you what: Next time you see a "Computing Magazine" by any name
with an overly-fawning review of a MicroSoft product in it, flip through
that particular issue and see how many full-page MicroSoft ads are in it,
and then think about whether or not MicroSoft bought that glowing review
by pumping a few hundred thousand bucks into the advertising coffers….
"News? Who cares about news? We're here to make a profit." (attributed
to Rupert Murdoch)
Mr. C (Amiga: Muerte O Suerte?)