Celebrity and the corruption of journalism

Three stories illustrate again why "TV journalism" should be considered an oxymoron.

First Rebecca Dana has Anderson Cooper's number. Or, rather, his lack of numbers.

But there is one pesky measure of victory that Mr. Cooper doesn't quite satisfy: He doesn't actually win.

On average, only some 630,000 viewers a night tune in to Anderson Cooper 360, to watch Anderson Cooper do his professional duties.

She is also not impressed with his big interview with Angelina Jolie:

Still, the Jolie interview brought up a natural parallel. She gets two hours in prime time to talk about the plight of refugees because she is famous. He gets two hours in prime time to talk to Angelina Jolie for essentially the same reason.

Then there is Lisa de Moraes's take on Barbara Walters and Starr Jones:

De Moraes writes of Walters's "carefully constructed image as the Mother Abbess of TV journalism." What I find interesting is that Walters has been able to maintain that façade even through decades of fluff interviews. Will it change now that she admits that she lied to reporters about what was happening with her show.

Speaking of rising negatives and not believing some of the things a woman has said, B-Wa had been telling her fellow journalists for months that there was no truth to the rumor Star was being dropped from the show. In early May, while in Washington for a "coming out" dinner for Saudi Arabia's new ambassador, The Post's Reliable Source column said she told them that Star Jones was not being dropped from "The View." A couple of weeks earlier the New York Times quoted her as saying, "If Star wants to continue to be [on 'The View'], she is welcome."

These days, B-Wa explains she told those little white misinformations to "protect Star."

The LA Times has the same idea:

Everybody in TV lies, of course. To save face, to save feelings, to save careers.

But rarely do the lies come apart so publicly and - quite frankly - so deliciously.

And rarely is a journalist such as Walters, whose main asset is her credibility, after all, forced to admit to tangoing with the truth.

A journalist lying to other journalists sounds serious to me. I wonder if future stories about Walters or The View will mention it?

I have my doubts. I fully expect to see Walters quoted as "the first woman network anchor" in stories about CBS and Katie Couric. Walters the lying executive producer will go down the memory hole.

Thirty years ago some overly clever numbskull thought B-Wa could anchor a network news show. The experiment failed, but it made her a journalistic celebrity. Like Anderson Cooper, she will always be newsworthy and quote-worthy. It is a permanent state of grace. Facts and truthfulness just do not matter when one is part of the Elect.