There is something distracting about a phantom of delight who radiates sexuality, filling us in on murder, rape, inflations, corruption, terror, bigotry, turpitude and sports. Newscasting is not a beauty contest. Ghastly tidings delivered by Aphrodite, or dispatches of grave import from an anchorman with a Barrymore profile and the magnetism of a Valentino, tend to lose something in translation; they become an effect. When pulchritude and sex appeal rate as prime ingredients in the dissemination of news, journalism yields to showmanship.

“Give Us 22 Minutes . . .” from the book “Trivializing America” (1983)