Fame is a powerful lure. As Americans, most of us are comfortable with elevating those who achieve it through talent, determination or even kismet. For those who are famous, the rewards are sweet: power, money, status, adoration and recognition. Some claim they are uncomfortable with the trappings: Behold major movie...

The Nation magazine recently held a "Salon" to explore the question, What Will Become of Our Culture? A rewarding evening, overall, but I'm sorry it didn't occur during the current New Moon juggernaut, as that phenomenon may answer by half any questions about our culture's future.

And I'm willing...

Should the Salahis be boiled in oil, mercilessly flogged or has the media made it much more than it really was?

After hearing about Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the brazen pair who crashed the White House State Dinner, I was alternately intrigued and worried, especially the way the media reported...

The day after Thanksgiving is always a day of reflection. Yesterday, we thought about all the reasons we have to be thankful. Today, once we separated into the "I'm not going to fight the Black Friday crowds" or "I'm going shopping" factions, it was back to real life.

I was...

People on my TV won't shut up about these two idiot party crashers. I know most of you have been trapped in the same room as your families for Thanksgiving, and probably have been forced to watch 24-hour news stations in lieu of interacting with distant cousins, so by...

I'm old fashioned. I grew up in an era when Thanksgiving dinner was a time not only for food but also for lively family conversations and catching up; but not today in the age of the Internet.

At a recent Thanksgiving gathering, I noticed the younger people were more engrossed...

American television news is returning to its roots as an information wasteland. Pretty faces with largely empty heads read teleprompters and mug for the camera. A dollop of information surrounded by a thick sugar coating of Kewpie doll. The major difference between the evening news and Jeopardy is that Alex...

If you were traveling on Thanksgiving Eve, you might have missed Arianna on Charlie Rose. She was there to discuss President Obama's forthcoming decision on US troop levels in Afghanistan. Joining Arianna were Yale English Professor David Bromwich, Council On Foreign Relations President Emeritus and Board Senior Fellow Leslie Gelb,...

Earlier this month, members of the Chicago Tea Party Patriots heckled a pair of town hall speakers who lost their daughter-in-law and unborn grandchild due to a medical emergency. Dan and Midge Hough wanted to explain how a lack of health care may have contributed to the two deaths.

"OMG New Moon Has $140 Million Opening!" said a UK magazine. "OMG times one million, you guys," writes a reporter in The Detroit News. Even the New York Times' Manohla Dargis described "New Moon" as "the juiceless, near bloodless sequel about a teenage girl and the sparkly vampire she, like,...

Whether the average person is exposed to 3000-4000 commercial messages a day or 5,000 or some other vague, suspiciously round number, it seems abundantly clear we see damn plenty. They have quietly proliferated across every available surface and airwave our senses can detect; you see them when you're...

Magazine publishers may now be looking at the iTunes model, which has been so successful at connecting with consumers on a paying basis, for help with the digital future. Thanks to the MediaBistro.com Daily Media News Feed, we are alerted to stories in The New York Observer and...

Toys "R" Us is giving customers the opportunity to preview its Holiday sales online Rather than publish its Black Friday deals in newspapers, the popular toy store is previewing its sales event on Facebook. The sales preview is not only...

If you were unlucky enough to read the AP story on the Sacred Heart University lacrosse player sexual assault case, you were the recipient of a huge dose of rape myths.  The AP, quotes Bridgeport criminal defense attorney Wayne Keeney extensively on the case.  Whether the AP did their journalistic due...

It's not uncommon for a president to recommend scholarly or journalistic work. It's rarer for the process to happen entirely online, as in the case of Ron Brownstein's recent blog post on the Senate healthcare bill.

The post, which argues that Reid's bill is more cost-efficient than critics suggest,...

Talking with Bill O'Reilly, conservative media commentator Bernard Goldberg offered the following account of why liberals have come to dislike Sarah Palin:

She has 5 kids. Liberals don't have 5 kids. One of them has Down Syndrome. Liberals certainly don't allow that to happen.

Two days before Thanksgiving, the top headline here in Kansas City is budget cuts. Kansas Governor Parkinson is telling kids to expect larger classes; patients, more overworked staff; poor neighborhoods, even less assistance. Meanwhile, evidence of the president's stimulus spending is all around us: Whatever direction you head out of...

The marriage between Oprah and national broadcast television was made in show business heaven, but after 25 years she's going to abandon the aging broadcast TV dinosaur, which will help push it into extinction.

TV made Oprah the most famous, most influential, most beloved, most generous, richest (about $2.3 billion)...