Training as a Foundation

Wendy Williams has a bachelor’s degree in communication. That fact should not feel radical, but it does, because we now live in an era where entertainment journalism has been gutted and replaced by influencers and socialites with no training, no craft, and no fearlessness.

Williams, like the greats before her, studied. She learned how to structure a question, how to hold silence until it cracked, how to turn an interview into cultural currency. Her degree did not make her famous, but it gave her tools. And tools matter. The best hosts and interviewers, Wendy, Conan O’Brien, Andy Cohen, weren’t just charismatic personalities. They were technicians. They knew how to engineer a moment that lived beyond the broadcast.

The Collapse of Craft

That is what has been lost. Today, entertainment coverage is dominated by people whose only credential is proximity: follower counts, brand deals, friendships with celebrities. They do not test power, but instead protect it. Their questions are safe because their survival depends on access. Journalism has been replaced with PR. Content has been substituted for craft.

The Moral Obligation of Honesty

You can see the collapse most clearly in the questions. The moral obligation of the journalist, or the host, or the interviewer, has always been to try for honesty. Not niceness, not virality, not access: honesty. A studied interviewer will risk discomfort, even risk alienating the guest, because they understand the purpose is to reveal something real. That tension is where culture lives.

That obligation is gone. Today, most interviewers care as much about being famous as the people they’re talking to. The exchange isn’t about drawing truth; it’s about protecting brand. The journalist wants to stay invited, the celebrity wants to stay untouchable, and so what we get is a staged performance of conversation. Safe questions, shallow rapport, clips engineered to bounce around TikTok and vanish by tomorrow.

Why Training Still Matters

Trained journalists did the opposite. They knew who they were sitting across from. They studied the subject, the history, the contradictions, so they could press beyond the surface. They were willing to get uncomfortable, because the integrity of the piece mattered more than whether the guest liked them. That is why a Wendy Williams moment still circulates twenty years later, and why so much of today’s celebrity coverage disappears within hours.

This isn’t just about nostalgia for a “better time.” It is part of a larger collapse: the rise of anti-intellectualism. We have convinced ourselves that charisma is enough, that training is elitist, that education doesn’t translate. But it does. You can feel the difference between an interviewer who understands pacing, tension, and timing, and an influencer fumbling through small talk while praying not to get canceled. One is craft. The other is access.

Skill Meeting Opportunity

Conan O’Brien turned a Harvard degree in literature into late-night improvisation that rewired comedy. Andy Cohen leveraged his communications training into a brand of hosting that shaped the reality-TV era. Wendy Williams weaponized her radio background to demand honesty from celebrities who would rather hide behind PR scripts. These were not simply accidents of personality. They were the results of skill, discipline, and knowledge meeting opportunity.

The Power of Cultural Moments

And the impact was seismic. They created moments that defined decades. They pulled the mask off celebrity culture, gave audiences something sharper than gossip, and proved that media could still surprise us. A single sharp question could shift a career. A host’s refusal to flatter could turn into an era-defining moment. Great journalists and interviewers don’t just cover pop culture, they mold it.

That is the line today’s influencers will not cross. They confuse rapport with obedience. They equate friendliness with professionalism. But the greats knew better. They understood that the job was not to stay liked, not to stay invited, but to create something real enough to outlast the conversation itself. They knew that sometimes the most important question is the one that risks closing the door.

A Culture Weakened

We don’t have that anymore. What we have instead are cozy chats, empty flattery, and influencers desperate to stay in the orbit of power. We are training audiences to expect less, to accept less, to confuse access with journalism. And the culture is weaker for it.

Closing

So yes, Wendy Williams has a bachelor’s degree in communication. And that should remind us of something simple but urgent: training matters. Craft matters. Journalism matters. Without it, pop culture is just another feed, disposable, hollow, forgettable.