The media came under fire from former vice president Al Gore recently for trivializing important events and sensationalizing the trivial. At a recent book signing in New York for his latest book, The Assault on Reason, Gore took the opportunity to lambaste the press for spending more headlines on Britney Spears’ hairdos than on global warming and the war in Iraq.

"What is it about our collective decision-making process that has led us to this state of affairs where we spend much more time in the public forum talking about—or receiving information about—Britney Spears shaving her head or Paris Hilton going to jail?" Gore asked at the signing, according to Agence France-Presse.

He lamented what he described as the, "destruction of the boundary between news and entertainment" and said the United States was "vulnerable as a democracy to mass and continuing distraction."

In the book, Gore posits that a free press is the “immune system” of a democracy, and that providing clear and objective coverage over current events can reduce irrational public fears. He cites the entry into Iraq as an example, saying that most people in the United States believed the administration’s claims that Saddam Hussein was about to unleash weapons of mass destruction were true and that there was a critical need to control that threat. He claims that the administration manipulated the fears of the American public to control events, a manipulation that could have been assuaged by proper news reporting.

These comments raise serious questions about the ability of both traditional and new media to continue to act in the role of objective news provider and arbiter of truth. Should editors focus on gaining readership at the expense of leaving hard news on the table, or should they instead refocus their energies on the important stories of the day that will help to decide the fate of the world?

Another important question to ask is that if editors concentrate their news around celebrity gossip instead of hard news, because that’s what people want to read, then is the fate of media already sealed?