Thereby turning every issue into a cause célèbre.
I'm proposing here a thought experiment where, rather than letting the public arena and media suss out how to play the story, the public gets a direct vote.
My actual hope was the opposite of what you say: rather than leaving the media cycle around celebrities rumble on indefinitely, there'd be some discrete feedback events, checkin points where we can decide whether this de-facto cause celebre is - to borrow from a magazine - wired tired or expired.
So by pop vote people vote their favorite causes (schools, roads, homeless shelters, prisons, climate, pensions, etc.) and as a taxpayer you can vote your dollars/currency into any number of causes you can spread your tax contribution among.
/s (in case you're missing it, politicians are already effectively celebrities)
In my view, you're gripe is that this system would be super shallow. Kind of agreed! What could give it more depth & substance, what could better direct this available energy? Sure, "don't" is a valid answer! But also, what might we try?