Folks on “Reliable Sources” today with Howard Kurtz took turns bashing reputable news outlets for covering Paris Hilton. And, I’m sick of it.

It’s this redundantly pompous reaction to pop culture that helps destroy journalism. Newspapers and television are mass mediums. That means success requires attracting lots of people. Pop culture is what those people have in common.

Calling your audience’s culture dumb is the same as calling your audience dumb. That’s not going to win any viewers. So, shut up already.

Journalists don’t get to decide what’s important. If you haven’t realized that yet, then I’m sorry to have to break it to you. The people decide.

Journalism is a service. Cover what the ratings tell you to cover. Promote what the stats say works. Because they’re not just numbers; those are votes. Ignoring the votes means people will change the channel, or newspaper, or magazine, etc.

If you do a good enough job listening to your viewers or readers, then they let you pick a few stories. They want you to cover the less dramatic, but seriously important. But the agreement, and it is an agreement, is that you first cover what they want.

Instead of letting these stories devolve into sessions of self-loathing, journalists should cover these soap operas better. (That shouldn’t be difficult: MSNBC actually put famed pothead Tommy Chong on the air to analyze the Paris Hilton sentence.)

Law & Order has long been one of the most popular shows on television. Boston Legal is watched by millions. They’re successful, in part, because entire story lines are “ripped from the headlines.”

WWOD? What would Oprah do? She’s rich for a reason. The thing people forget about Oprah is she’s a journalist at her roots.

On her show, expect to hear from the kids who idolize Paris. How do their parents deal with that? She’d find the person whose family was killed by an intoxicated driver to illustrate the consequences of Paris’ actions. Maybe we’d talk with a psychologist about how growing up rich affects a person’s view of the world. Then talk to a rich person who went to jail about how it changed them. I could go on and on.

But the media can’t. All they can do is report the latest thing to have happened, so they report the same tidbit 10,000 times and ask talking heads for their vapid reactions. Thoughtless coverage is killing journalism.

Stop deploring what the people want. Stop being annoyed by your audience. Start listening, and then start actually thinking up some worthwhile ways to cover these stories.