I just saw an ad for Barbara Walters’ to-be-broadcast interview with Carol Burnett.
In the ad, Barbara asks Carol about the death of her daughter. You can see Carol’s eyes welling up before she answers the question. What a moment.
We, as a nation licking our wounds for the ninth consecutive month, cannot miss this. One National Treasure interviews another–and brings her to tears. Carol is unashamed to weep on national television, and ABC News is unashamed to put it there.
Barbara Walters has brought others to tears–Fidel Castro, Pope John Paul I, J.D. Salinger, Slobodon Milosevic–but each time it happens again it is more transcendent than the last.
Once again, Barbara makes it clear that these beings we call celebrities are all too human.
Until Internet news can do that, it’s not worthy of being called “journalism”.