The Media Loves “Crap,” Alterman Says

At a lecture yesterday, Eric Alterman “lamented that important stories such as the abuse at the U.S. military’s Abu Gharib prison in Iraq are ‘one-week stories’ at best, while attention is lavished on sagas such as the Scott Peterson murder trial,” Editor & Publisher says. “Journalists are responsible for that, in part because they have become part of the permanent government, and in part because we’ve become so addicted to the spectacle,” he said. “I do think the media are to be blamed for devoting so much of their space to crap.”

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