Indeed

ABC’s grand experiment with Buckley and Vidal didn’t so much result in worse discussion as it resulted in more discussion, because it revealed discussion to be something greater than its content. First, their debates revealed televised discussion to be, first and foremost, a form of television, and thereby induced executives to expand the formal boundaries of news broadcasting. Second, their debates revealed televised discussion to be a media event in a very peculiar and particular sense: an event that existed more for the benefit of other media people, for journalists and commentators, than for the general public. The clashes come off as an event that entered the echo chamber of the punditocracy, that piqued the interest and won the acclaim of journalists and commentators, who themselves defined its import and impact by the very fact of their noticing. It was mass media for an insider audience, intended to create not first-order popularity but buzz. That’s its distinctive post-modernity, and its enduring claim on attention.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/buckley-vidal-and-the-birth-of-buzz

Post #406,980 by rcareaga 12/14/15 10:01:27 PM Reply	Indeed Who among us—those of us old enough to remember—could forget that elevated debate, the civilized thrust and parry, the witty banter? “Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in the goddam face and you’ll stay plastered.” I tell you, it was like Athens under Pericles. nostalgically,
Post #407,005 by Ashton 12/16/15 2:21:29 AM Reply	Quite so, more like "God and (a) Man with Ale" than that other title Were they not both a tad squiffy?
Post #407,008 by mmoffitt 12/16/15 1:28:50 PM Reply	It was the beginning of the end. ABC’s grand experiment with Buckley and Vidal didn’t so much result in worse discussion as it resulted in more discussion, because it revealed discussion to be something greater than its content. First, their debates revealed televised discussion to be, first and foremost, a form of television, and thereby induced executives to expand the formal boundaries of news broadcasting. Second, their debates revealed televised discussion to be a media event in a very peculiar and particular sense: an event that existed more for the benefit of other media people, for journalists and commentators, than for the general public. The clashes come off as an event that entered the echo chamber of the punditocracy, that piqued the interest and won the acclaim of journalists and commentators, who themselves defined its import and impact by the very fact of their noticing. It was mass media for an insider audience, intended to create not first-order popularity but buzz. That’s its distinctive post-modernity, and its enduring claim on attention. http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/buckley-vidal-and-the-birth-of-buzz

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