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[Food porn? Insalata mista, Restaurante Moorea, Ibiza]

Scripps balanced its newspaper portfolio by diversifying into such ventures as the Food Network, a show that's made an art of what detractors call "food pornography." Here's how Bill Buford described it in an October 2006 New Yorker magazine story:

Its creators usually refer to it as "making beauties" -- as in “Hey, Al, let's do a beauty of those pecans." Bob Tuschman, the Food Network’s head of programming, had described the concept when I visited him in his office, above the Chelsea Market, in Manhattan. The point is to get very close to what you are filming, so close that you can see an ingredient’s "pores" ("You should believe the dish is in your living room"), which then triggers some kind of Neanderthal reflex. If you’re flicking from channel to channel and come upon food that has been shot in this way, you will be hardwired as a human being to stop, look, and bring it back to your cave."

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