"Media madness," as Bowman (of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, an "institute dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy") describes it, is a product of the same commercial, sociological, and intellectual conditions that brought the mass media into influence. For him, it consists of six primary failings (each of which occupies a chapter): a pretense of objectivity, the elevation of the importance of feelings over facts, tolerance for sensationalism and hyperbole in order to sell more advertising, pandering to the meritocracy's overvaluation of intelligence, acceptance of "the therapeutic culture" because of the way it flatters the media's sense of its own superiority, and celebrity worship and the tendency in public life to turn political into moral matters (thus removing them from the realm of political debate). Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)