VITAMEDIAS
America's Reality-TV Addiction: Shows like Survivor and Joe Millionaire have hooked networks and captivated viewers, but withdrawal promises to be painful
For the TV industry, the obsession with all things real adds up to easy advertising lucre in a disastrous climate, where margins are getting squeezed harder and harder. Still, something far more sickening is going on than any episode of Fear Factor. Masses in both the blue and the red states seem more passionate about this stuff than the latest dispatches from Hans Blix, substituting an obsession with a contrived reality for attention to the all-too-scary global one.
North Korea continues amassing a nuclear cache. The country is on the verge of war. That's reality. But it's not spiking the ratings on prime time.