Even though I watch hardly any television, I care -- I care deeply -- about Katie Couric's "First-Night win."

That's because I prefer real phoniness to fake phoniness.

MORE: It occurs to me that readers might think I am being facetious in attempting to distinguish between real and fake phoniness, so I thought I should dig deeper and supply an example. My favorite artist is Salvador Dali, whose surrealism extended even into the provenance of his own art. The man's life as well as his art attempted to blur the distinction between the real and the unreal, and thus, to this day it can be very difficult for experts at authentication to determine whether a Dali is a real or a fake Dali (and whether his signature, which he signed in innumerable ways and delegated others to sign, was in fact his). In this classic if unverifiable example, Dali explained why it was possible that even a real Dali signed by him could nonetheless be a fake:

In Dali's mind, the signature may have been the least important ingredient to determine authenticity. The French art publisher Jean-Paul Delcourt, a signatory to some controversial Dali prints, tells about acquiring a dozen "Dali" lithographs from an American publisher and reselling them to an English dealer. The Englishman complained later than Enrique Sabater had declared them to be fakes, and a customer wanted his money back. The American publisher refused to do so because he had certificates of authenticity. Delcourt says he saw Dali at the Meurice Hotel and showed the prints to Dali and Gala.

"Dali whispered into Gala's ear, and Gala repeated his statement to me: 'Dali says the picture is good, the signature is good, but the work is a fake,' " Delcourt recalls.

"Why is it a fake?" Delcourt asked.

"The answer: 'Dali has not been paid.'

Are there lessons from Dali which might be relevant to today's media? Perhaps. Dali was often attacked by the media, for being a phony, but his surrealism spoke for itself, and he came right back at them:

The cherry on the cake was: for every attack the critics launched at Dali the man (they really had no idea who he was), Dali would come back at them with yet another elaborate piece of fiction about himself. It was unfair. The critics were "devoted to the truth." The painter was free to invent himself over and over as many times as he fancied.

At best (and it was not very good), a critic might admit Dali was a complete mystery. But the press does not like that outcome. Exposure of the very entrails of a celebrity is necessary. The press adopts its own pose: it is dedicated to taking things apart and laying them bare. (Of course, that strategy is based on the conniving and secret concept that journalistic probing is, at the end, supposed to leave the status quo intact.)

Dali was holding up a mirror. He was saying, "You people are like me. We're all doing fiction. I'm much better at it. In the process, I get at a much deeper truth."

By the way, legal scholars into the serious study of the fake-but-accurate should by all means check out the leading case of DALI FOUNDATION v. KOSTABI, 168 F.3d 861 (2004).

Highly informative reading!

DISCLOSURE: In the interest of full and complete accuracy, I should probably make it clear that I did not actually watch Katie Couric's debut, but I feel as if it's as if I did.

MORE: Attention Dali experts! I have been unable to authenticate the following, but I am presenting it in the hope that someone can. It does appear to have been signed, and because it is whatever it is, I think it's fair to say that it has at least been content-verified.