the world of the press has been aware for more than a century that news is entirely an artefact, since anything becomes news only by virtue of being printed. This is also the character of fame and celebrity, since they consist not in a mode of being but in a mode of processing by various media. Today the available means of such processing are so fantastic that a four-year stint in the White House is no longer easily distinguishable from something arranged by a booking agency.¹