The newsworthiness of the interviews was debated in earnest, with most people seeming to agree that it was worth the call to put Nunberg on TV, despite his glaring instability and dubious insider knowledge. The interviewers were good; they asked the right questions, clearly more fluent in the details of the investigation than Nunberg himself. It was entertaining, sure, but the value of the interviews diminished as the day progressed, especially as he started using his newfound platform as a forum for popping off at his enemies. “He is legitimate news. He got a subpoena from Mueller,” said Greta Van Susteren, the veteran TV anchor who has helmed a desk at CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. “But where I draw the line is knowing he is a train wreck. Why does any news organization need to go further and put on the circus? You know why. Everyone in the news business does. Why not report the legitimate news . . . or even replay tape from earlier interviews, where people get a sense of who he is or is not? This is all about judgment, and people have different judgment.”

Others dug their heels in on two sides of an argument we’ll all likely forget about by Saturday. Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei of Axios called it “awful scandal porn” that took advantage of “a troubled Trump flunky, pecked at and picked apart like roadkill on the Russia Interstate, in his last gasps of public fame and shame.” It was, in their telling, “one of the reasons America hates the media.” Some members of the sanctimonious press didn’t appreciate the sanctimony, and they lashed back on Twitter, suggesting that Nunberg had been a source for Axios in its own Russia reporting. “I didn’t realize @axios new headquarters was a glass house,” tweeted MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle. The back and forth was laced with its own petty grievances: reporters don’t like the fact that their editors frequently send them “Do we have this?” e-mails asking them to confirm Axios scoops.

In the opposite corner, there are people who somehow thought the Nunberg moment was worthy of our esteem, which is truly nuts, even in our zany times. Erik Wemple of The Washington Post wrote an unlikely article praising the Nunberg interviews as “cable news at its best.” That was the initial headline at least, until someone at the Post smartly downgraded it to this: “Yes, Sam Nunberg sounded unhinged. Yes, that’s newsworthy.” On that, we can sort of agree!

Wemple nevertheless thinks cable did a fine job with Nunberg, and he makes his case this way: “What are cable-news producers to do? Reject the opportunity to have a fully transparent, on-the-record interview with a guy who has gotten closer to the Mueller team than they’ll ever get? No. They must interview the guy and, in the process, expose whatever erratic behavior he exhibits.” Another answer to that question might be: yeah, maybe reject him! I dunno, just putting that out there.

If you’re running a news organization and getting an on-camera interview with a troubled Trump grifter is your definition of “getting close” to the Mueller investigation, then maybe you’re doing it wrong. CNN had Nunberg on television all day yesterday, but nothing from those interviews produced more news about the Russia investigation than the network’s own deep reporting from journalists like Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto, Shimon Prokupecz or Pamela Brown.

There’s not really a right or a wrong in the debate over Nunberg’s seppuku act. Was it cable news at its best? Not really. Was it an unseemly act of exploitation? Yes, sort of. Does Trump surround himself with the “best and most serious people,” as he likes to say? No. But is there any way it would have unfolded differently? Not at all.

The Nunberg show was newsworthy, but not for any of the high-minded reasons journalists claim. We in the media can pretend that the term “newsworthy” is some kind of hallowed verdict that can only be dispensed by people who have training in journalism. The reality is more pedestrian. The only definition of what’s newsworthy in our staccato-burst political world is simply . . . what’s new.

Sometimes what’s new might be sophisticated, complicated, real, momentous. Sometimes what’s new is steel and aluminum tariffs. Sometimes what’s new is a ghastly school shooting in Florida. Sometimes what’s new is a terrorist attack. But sometimes what’s new is just a guy in the dumps who got loaded and called a bunch of thirsty cable-news bookers who are also looking for their next fix.

Peter Hamby is the host of Snapchat’s Good Luck America.