ONE of the best things about going to the hairdresser's is catching up on all the mags. I don't know where you go but mine have some fantastic reading material - massive magazines that cost upwards of $25 and can only be bought at art galleries, and ones that have an International sticker on them and a picture of a little aeroplane to indicate their hot currency. 

 

 

I don't know if you bothered watching Inside the Great Magazines, it's possible it's the kind of thing only a media person might get into, I don't know. It's the last episode tonight, and in a way I'm glad, because it's been doing my head in a bit. 

 

Mainly because of the central question, which is deeply worrying even if you don't happen to own a magazine: what is news and how do you get people to pay for it when it's so freely and widely available?

 

There's a guy in this episode, his name's Evan Solomon, he's a journalist and commentator in America, and he's of the view that information is now a form of garbage, that it has no value any more - you can just google anything in two seconds and pretend you're intelligent.

 

It's kind of harsh, but you can maybe see his point. Although there's probably more to the argument that's also made here about the role celebrities play in a magazine. George Pimentel, the photographer, is really interesting, comparing what a pic from a war zone is worth - or what the photographer gets paid for it, anyway - with one of a celebrity having a cup of coffee . . . 

 

Even Tina Brown, the writer and talkshow host, who used to edit Tatler and The New Yorker and Vanity Fair - she was the one who put Demi Moore (pictured) on the cover when she was pregnant - says she never imagined celebrity culture would become such an overwhelming and engulfing trend. Although I think trend could be the wrong word to use there, because clearly it's gone beyond that now.