George W.S. Trow, the media critic and essayist, has died at the age of 63. Trow is best known for Within the Context of No Context, an article he wrote for the New Yorker (they've made part of it available here) and later expanded into a book. (Also worth a read: My Pilgrim's Progress.) Trow's thirty year association with the New Yorker ended in 1994, when then-editor Tina Brown brought on Roseanne Barr to guest edit an issue. The Times obit quotes the lacerating back-and-forth between Trow and Brown:

In his note of resignation, Mr. Trow likened Ms. Brown to someone selling her soul "to get close to the Hapsburgs — 1913."

Ms. Brown shot back, in a note of her own: "I am distraught at your defection, but since you never actually write anything, I should say I am notionally distraught."

Trow's major thesis, that mass media and a cultural obsession with celebrity were ruining society as we know it, is borne out pretty much each day on this website and every other. Rest in peace, George.

George Trow, 63, a Critic of American Culture, Dies [NYT]

Within the Context of No-Context (excerpt)

I Cover Carter [NYer]