"I will now have the opportunity to do this 24 hours a day on a platform that goes on forever."
-- Oprah, making not so much a promise as a threat, referring to her new cable channel called, shockingly, The Oprah Winfrey Network
Weston Kosova and Pat Wingert explore the crazy and often dangerous world of Oprah's promotion of celebrity science and health advice in the latest issue of Newsweek:
"The truth is, some of what Oprah promotes isn't good, and a lot of the advice her guests dispense on the show is just bad. The Suzanne Somers episode wasn't an oddball occurrence. This kind of thing happens again and again on Oprah. Some of the many experts who cross her stage offer interesting and useful information (props to you, Dr. Oz). Others gush nonsense. Oprah, who holds up her guests as prophets, can't seem to tell the difference. She has the power to summon the most learned authorities on any subject; who would refuse her? Instead, all too often Oprah winds up putting herself and her trusting audience in the hands of celebrity authors and pop-science artists pitching wonder cures and miracle treatments that are questionable or flat-out wrong, and sometimes dangerous."
After finishing this article, two things came to mind: 1) Every single one of Oprah's little myrmidons should read it (but likely won't because Oprah herself hasn't recommended it), and 2) The authors of this article will be mysteriously killed by a giant slice of pizza by the end of the week.
Related: DXM: Autism Speaks (and Speaks, and Speaks)/5.6.09
(Update: Yesterday I incorrectly attributed the full article to Ezra Klein. My bad. It happens.)
No comments:
Post a Comment