Here's a gem.

From today's NYT article on cutbacks at Time inc., which will mean the end of lavish team reporting but a return of authorial voice (I'll believe that when I see it):

Larry Hackett, managing editor of People, said the new reporting model would not preclude putting several correspondents on one piece when the news warrants it, as it often does these days with the peripatetic Ms. Spears.

Yes, Britney Spears often merits multiple reporters from a single magaz. That's the state of the news media.

Oh well, they are following their market. I can't deny it. When you sit in a doctor's waiting room and check out what people are reading, it's not Parents or BusinessWeek or Golf Digest or US News and World Report. So let them eat Britney.

But shouldn't there be some way for the Britney interest to subsidize something more useful to public discourse? Not with the tyranny of the click, apparently.