Local Newspaper Struggles With Its 'Real Housewives' Crack Habit

Once you know that the reality TV “star” “phenomenon” is merely a set of nonsense network-packaged narratives, stories and characters deployed to capitalize on the news outlets that need “information” to sell their own products, particularly when those news outlets don’t care that the information they present is actually the product being sold itself, and that the whole thing is a business ploy wherein publicity is made through various entities using other entities in a cash-funded reputation market, well then there’s no point in treating reality TV as a cultural product. Sorry, Hank Stuever! You’re right about reality TV, but you’re just feeding the beast. Particularly since your Washington Post newspaper is running a “preview” of the “latest installment” of Real Housewives alongside your criticism. Reality television is only a capitalist product-a great one, in those terms, as it lends itself to multiple repackaging and distribution. (See also: “LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY”!) But the only way out is all the way out. We know for a fact that you can sell newspapers another way.