Oprah and her nakedly avaricious audience

Won’t miss Oprah when she ends her show; I’ve never been a fan, and have become less tolerant of her diva-isms as they become more pronounced.

It was like “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire,” but without all those nettlesome questions separating people from their prizes. By now, it’s got to the point where an audience that doesn’t score any booty goes home crestfallen.

Viewed charitably, the car and technology and pajama handouts amount to an immodestly rich and successful woman letting some of the wealth trickle down. But a skeptic might classify them as almost a form of bribery: Keep loving me, baby, and I might buy you that diamond necklace.

And the shows’ nakedly avaricious nature — audience members were virtually quaking with excitement as Winfrey teased out the prize announcement Monday — threatens to overshadow some of the good, and serious, work Winfrey does.

(click to continue reading Steve Johnson: Oprah one-ups herself: Free flights for audience – chicagotribune.com.)

and I loved this

Oprah Winfrey’s…studio audience — stocked with “ultimate” fans the way George W. Bush used to stock his speeches with partisans