The Montreal Gazette’s Misty Narris commented on journalists who cross over to entertainment in a recent column.
Narris highlighted the case of CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who both reports news for CNN and crosses lines to entertainment, like with his segment of getting spray-tanned with reality TV’s Snooki.
“Crossover acts are hardly new. Barbara Walters, Geraldo Rivera, Julie Chen and Katie Couric have all, at some point, traversed the line between serious news and more superficial entertainment,” Narris wrote.
Narris cited Rutgers’ undergradaute journalism coordinator Steven Miller’s comments that “(The trend) is a horrible comment on our society, and on what people are willing to accept. Journalism is supposed to be serving the public to raise the level of intellectual discourse; it’s not there to take it down to the lowest common denominator.”