Jeff Edelstein of the Trentonian offered a by the minute analysis of last night’s ‘American Idol’ as New Jersey’s own Antonella Barba learned her fate. Edelstein writes, “8:36: Nooooooo! Seacrest says, ‘Antonella, the journey ends for you tonight,’ and she immediately starts crying. Oh man. I wish she wouldn’t cry. It makes her human, and not a two-dimensional half-naked girl. This is very, very hard for me to deal with.” Read more.

In wake of the photo scandal involving ousted ‘American Idol’ semi-finalist Antonella Barba, Robert Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University in New York, told the National Post cellphones that can take pictures, digital cameras and the rise of social networking sites on the Internet have forever changed the notion of what is private. “On one level, people should be aware of this very different environment when it comes to the notion of private,” he said. “We want to alert kids to the fact that every time an image gets taken of you on a cellphone, anytime you’re messing around and making a video, all of this stuff now has an automatic international distribution system.” Read more.

Craig Berman of MSNBC shared his thoughts on the elimination of Sundance Head, Sabrina Sloan, Jarred Cotter, and Antonella Barba from Thursday night’s ‘American Idol’. “It was a kindness to send Antonella Barba home – the 20-year-old has been through enough already, given all the buzz over the risqué photos that appeared all over the Internet,” Berman writes. “The whole hullabaloo undoubtedly mortified her, embarrassed the show, and once again caused Rosie O’Donnell to inject herself into the reality TV landscape for no apparent reason other than the fact that more people watch ‘Idol’ than ‘The View’. Apart from the titillation of teenage boys hoping that more real or made-up pictures would surface if she stuck around longer, there was no reason to keep Barba around.” Read more.