{"id":459,"date":"2009-05-05T11:11:49","date_gmt":"2009-05-05T16:11:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/?p=459"},"modified":"2009-05-13T16:46:04","modified_gmt":"2009-05-13T21:46:04","slug":"celebrity-culture-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/05\/celebrity-culture-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrity-Culture Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m sick of celebrity fever, especially as it seems to have infected the so-called legacy news outlets today. A quick survey of the morning news shows\u2014and these days the evening news is almost as bad\u2014makes it clear that celebrities are the news. This is why the near death of quality newspapers is such a travesty. In television news, it seems that the old journalistic truism \u201cIf it bleeds, it leads\u201d has been supplanted by \u201cGive the people what they want,\u201d which, if what often runs as news is any indication, is underage starlets and their wardrobe malfunctions. Don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014I love movies, I happily flip through magazines like People<\/em> and Us Weekly<\/em> on occasion, and I\u2019m addicted to Dancing with the Stars<\/strong>.<\/em> But I\u2019m beginning to think this obsessive coverage of celebrities and their misadventures is crowding out the real news that Hollywood was meant to provide an occasional entertaining escape from. We have totally lost sight of who and what really make this country the best place on earth to live and to pursue the American dream.<\/p>\n

First, let\u2019s be clear about who is not<\/em> the bedrock of the American way of life: It\u00a0 isn\u2019t Brangelina<\/strong>. Yes, American creativity, or at least our popular culture, is a powerful force in the global economy. Movies are a great U.S. export, as are some of our TV shows; but Hollywood didn\u2019t build America. Neither did Wall Street. In its most basic form, the Street is just a bunch of well dressed, nicely pressed salespeople\u2014selling the stuff that other people make and taking a commission for doing so\u2014only they\u2019re paper pushers instead of pushcart vendors, with little real regulation. That\u2019s not to say that many Wall Streeters don\u2019t provide value\u2014they finance and sell companies, merge them when it makes sense, take them public when the markets allow. But they don\u2019t make stuff; they aren\u2019t manufacturers; they aren\u2019t building companies and adding real value to our capitalist society.<\/p>\n

No, the real creative force in America is the entrepreneurs who live and die by the companies they build and run. They, not the Fortune<\/em> 500, are the ones who employ over 90 percent of Americans. During this economic crisis, hundreds of small and medium-size businesses were forced to file for bankruptcy protection, but the government didn\u2019t bail them out\u2014not one.\u00a0 And the broadcast media didn\u2019t cover the plight of these business owners; they\u2019re not famous.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s a news flash: Many of these entrepreneurs have grown really tired of hearing the \u201ctoo big to fail\u201d rationale from Wall Street and Washington, which has handed out billions to far more irresponsible businesses. Nevertheless, the vast majority of privately held companies have buckled down, controlled their spending, and begun taking innovative measures to reinvigorate their companies.\u00a0They have accepted responsibility for their futures. These are the stalwarts who build America. They may not be famous; they are definitely not celebrities; but they are the responsible self-made rich. Long may they reign, even if not in the shallow world of broadcast media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In television news, it seems that the old journalistic truism \u201cIf it bleeds, it leads\u201d has been supplanted by \u201cGive the people what they want,\u201d which, if what often runs as news is any indication, is underage starlets and their wardrobe malfunctions. Don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014I love movies, I happily flip through magazines like People<\/em> and Us Weekly<\/em> on occasion, and I\u2019m addicted to Dancing with the Stars<\/strong>.<\/em> But I\u2019m beginning to think this obsessive coverage of celebrities and their misadventures is crowding out the real news that Hollywood was meant to provide an occasional entertaining escape from. We have totally lost sight of who and what really make this country the best place on earth to live and to pursue the American dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[114,5],"tags":[149,151,145,146,148,152,150,147,143,91],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":483,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions\/483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.richestmanintown.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}