Advice to Budding Journos: Hate Is the Hottest Beat

Who says journalism is dead? Sure, newspapers are slashing newsroom staff and shutting down bureaus, Simon Dumenco writes in Advertising Age, but there’s still one booming sector: hate. “Everything is a hate beat these days, because everybody is consumed with hating on everybody else.” And you can specialize:

• Reality hate: Reality TV stars are hard to tell apart, Dumenco writes. "The only way to do that is to tally and re-tally their most despicable qualities, their vilest actions, so news consumers can properly parse the reality-star spectrum based on varying levels of hateability."

• Jon and Kate (Plus Hate): Which reality stars hate which others is a whole subgenre worthy of the attention of Good Morning America's Chris Cuomo and Diane Sawyer. "May God rest your soul, Walter Cronkite."
• Real celebrity hate: Movie stars are like reality stars, but "more hateable because they're usually tons richer."
• Sports: In the land of Michael Vick and John McEnroe (still?), what's not to hate?
• Business: In an about-face from the "hagiography business reporters lavished on" Wall Street just recently, now it's all hate, all the time.

(More Michael Vick stories.)