Barbara Kruger Quotes

Let's not kid ourselves. You pick up 'The Washington Post' and find O.J. Simpson on the front page; 'serious journalists' covered Anna Nicole Smith.

What I do know is that with a celebrity's death comes an avalanche of media, and in that media is most often another death - it takes a life that is filled with complicated talent, hope, success and drive and reduces it to the 'story.'

I got asked by a freelance journalist to jump in front of Princess Diana's funeral. How pathetic is that? That would have been the stupidest thing on the planet.

Sometimes I think they should set up an asylum for people like that... a whole slew of paparazzi defending their positions.

I'd have to set my hair on fire to get on the news.

American newspapers disregard principles to seize on people, following them into their private lives and laying bare their weaknesses and their vices.

The media should be ready to cover every event at the Oberois' residence. If Vivek's dog has dysentery tomorrow, we should be prepared to hear Vivek talk about it on camera for three hours.

The horrible thing about Death of princess Diana - the sacrificial lamb, which she was. And I believe, in a sense, John Kennedy, Jr. was the same thing. These are people that we loved so much that we drove them berserk with all the attention and they basically didn't have any particular stellar talents. They were just in some kind of a position somewhere where we fixed on them and they became, literally, sacrificial lambs

I think the media has got into this Enquirer mentality. Years ago, legitimate press didn't really concern itself with sordid details of people's personal lives. That wasn't the focus. But also a lot of celebrities were bullied into revealing this breakup or tragedy or divorce or problem. They started to talk about it and the press just started to talk about people's private lives. That just seems to be the norm.

There are certain people in our popular culture that just capture people's imaginations. And in death, they become even larger. Now, I have to admit that it's also fed by a 24/7 media that is insatiable.

Like I said, you guys in the media will treat the dumbest jack**s in the entire f***ng world like they won a Pulitzer prize for journalism and will put that level of weight on it, like they're an ambassador to some country we're trying to establish trade with.

In Britain we have a very powerful tabloid culture with celebrities on the front page crying with their make-up smeared and tears, and it's kind of what you'd expect from someone who likes to dress up that way.

Sentimentalists ... adopt whatever merit is in good repute, and almost make it hateful with their praise. The warmer their expressions, the colder we feel.... Cure the drunkard, heal the insane, mollify the homicide, civilize the Pawnee, but what lessons can be devised for the debauchee of sentiment?

I was not exploiting any real individual's story in writing ROOM, of course I was aware that my novel, by commenting on such situations, would run the risk of falling into those traps of voyeurism, sensationalism and sentimentality.

There's definitely a lot of trash that comes with the prize of being famous. It's a nice gift, but there's a lot of wrapping and paper and junk to cut through. Back then, when a movie came out and people saw you on the street, their reaction was so supercharged that it was scary. It would frighten other people. It used to really rattle me. I mean, everybody would love to have their clothes torn off by a mob of girls, but being screamed at is different.

It is sad that some people in the media like to create stories to sell their media, without any real facts to back up their stories.

The media will make a controversy out of anything, if they can.

The press frequently sneers at the hype devoted to a superstar, but the press itself is responsible for all the hype.

Believe it or not, fame is not as glamorous as it seems. I think it is much harder now with all of the media outlets, and people can be pretty nasty and harsh.

I'm thankful that we live in a crassly commercial, polarized culture, so media jackals like me have a lot of work to do.

We tried to do the news without frills, without fluffy hairdos, without graphics. It does say something about our business that is not very pretty. It didn't matter how good the show was. What counted was money.

I always felt, and I still feel, that the media doesn't belong in a public official's private life. It's a very difficult balance, because if you are elected to public office, people have a right to know a great deal about you, and the press has an absolute obligation to report all of that. But the reality is that there are times in which the reporting is really happening for almost voyeuristic reasons, in the gossip columns. Maybe half of it is wrong, and half of it is correct, and a lot of it is exaggerated. You've just got to get used to that if you're in public life.

Journalism is often simply the industrialisation of gossip.

A lot of artists have been persuaded into doing whatever they can do to gain attention. The media, of course, will position and promote the worst of them to the front page. The sidewalk to crime becomes the marketing campaign. These artists have seen it work and sell millions and millions of records for other artists.

Your cameras can't control the minds of those who know, that you'll even sell your soul just to get a story sold.