Dissemination of knowledge to society is now performed mainly by the media.

Media-style "authority" has more to do with popular acceptance than with proof.

Making an idea's authority coequal to popular acceptance is an invitation down the path back to more primitive belief systems.

Today's media generate an enveloping--and ultimately isolating--illusion of connectedness.

It may be as important that we enjoy identifying with pop musicians as that we enjoy listening to them.

Even in sports, celebrity nowadays has as much to do with symbolizing as with achieving.

Today's celebrity system represents a potent form of secular mythology.

We've come to doubt that anyone except anointed denizens of the media realm can know much of anything significant.

Undervaluing non-celebrity observations cheats us all--but is consistent with other forms of contemporary communication.

To reverse the trends that belittle us, we need to ascribe more value to our own observations.

In some areas, ordinary citizens have advantages over the media.

Television news can profoundly disconnect us from what's actually going on around us.

Sometimes the news media are profoundly, even dangerously, out of touch with real life.

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