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The line between entertainment and reality is getting fuzzier. But making the distinction is more important than ever

As online media rewards emotion over substance, we must separate the real from the make-believe

Gina Chick, David Genat, Guy Sebastian, Poh Ling Yeow, Elon Musk and Donald Trump don’t have a lot in common – except that theyare the living embodiment of the essential truth of reality television: there can only be one winner. Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic who did enormous (temporary) damage to the new regime when he revealed he had been included in a classified group chat on Signal organised by Mike Waltz, who not long afterwards ceased to be the president’s national security adviser. While a young DJT was absorbing the lessons of the age of television in midtown Manhattan, 50 blocks south, Neil Postman, a brilliant scholar at New York University, feared where this new manufactured reality might lead.

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