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Katha Pollitt and Andrew Sullivan

the breakfast table
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from: Andrew Sullivan

re: We Are All on Good Morning America

Posted Thursday, April 30, 1998, at 4:51 PM ET

Katha,
Sorry to hear about the email. Delete! Delete!

Yes, we're all on Good Morning America, these days, except me. I've never been on it, and never seen it (way too early). Warhol was absolutely prescient about that, although surely the 15 minutes ideal will pale in significance as it becomes truer and truer. I had my epiphany when I was asked a couple years back to be an MSNBC whateveritis. Stuck on a set in New Jersey, blathering soundbites about things I know nothing about, watched by a couple of thousand people, morphing into all those GenX punditclones, who have subsequently, mercifully, disappeared into the ether. Hell on earth. It's also a common observation now, first voiced, I think, by our saintly editor Michael Kinsley, that it only takes about fifteen minutes for those of us in the DC media-warp, to channel surf before we stumble across someone we know. So much for the prestige of the box.

Nevertheless, it still amazes me how powerful TV still is. The response I've gotten from TV vastly dwarves any feedback I've received from my writing. At the White House Correspondents' Dinner last Saturday (sorry I missed you) I found myself at one point walking absent-mindedly behind Dick Cavett. The tourists who lined the walls literally screamed and clapped and cheered as he walked by them. One lady grabbed him ecstatically and handed her friend a camera. It was truly menacing. And Paula, of course, was made by TV, as Monica surely will be. The complete fusion of Washington and Hollywood, the replacement of politics by celebrity, was perfectly exemplified by the evening. Anyone's power was related almost perfectly to their media exposure. The sole exception to this, I suppose, is the equally saintly TV-free Maureen Dowd. But can those of us without her wonderful perch manage to be so pure? I'm not pretending to be above all this, merely partly horrified at my own complicity.

Can you grant absolution?

best
Andrew

the breakfast table
entries
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from: Andrew Sullivan

re: We Are All on Good Morning America

Posted Thursday, April 30, 1998, at 4:51 PM ET
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Katha Pollitt is a columnist at The Nation. Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at the New Republic.
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