On May 8, a staggering verdict was reached in the case of talk show maven Jenny Jones.

The 12-member jury held “The Jenny Jones Show” responsible for the 1995 shooting death of a guest.

The show was ordered to pay $25 million to the family of Scott Amedure, a guest who participated in a “revealing secret crushes” show.

In a segment that never reached the airwaves, Scott Amedure revealed his secret crush on his heterosexual acquaintance Jonathan Schmitz.

During the taping, Amedure reportedly regaled the studio audience with his sexual fantasies about Schmitz.

The more or less unwitting Schmitz didn’t take too kindly to Amedure’s affections.

Schmitz shot and killed Amedure shortly after the taping.

Although the talk show industry was shocked by the verdict, opponents are saying that Jones needs to be held accountable for her part in the scandal.

“That type of human exploitation needs to be corralled,” the Amedure family’s attorney told the Associated Press after the verdict.

And he’s right — to an extent.

But responsibility also needs to be taken by those who willingly participate in these shows.

The bottom line is that neither Jenny Jones nor her show’s producers, no matter how smarmy they may be, is ultimately responsible for the young man’s death.

It seems a little too obvious to say that Schmitz alone is responsible for Amedure’s murder, but apparently the jury could have used a bit of a reminder.

Critics also are charging that the show’s producers didn’t take note of Schmitz’s mental condition.

The young man had been treated for depression in the past.

But shouldn’t that fact alone, in part, clear the show?

Is it really the responsibility of everyone in society to make sure that everyone else is completely sane before interacting with them? Hardly.

“Jenny Jones,” “The Jerry Springer Show” and their ilk are the redheaded stepchildren of the modern news media, and no one has ever argued otherwise. They’re not news; they’re not even info-tainment. Their sole purpose is to entertain and shock the masses who watch that sort of crap.

Did the producers want a mini-scandal when they brought out Amedure to reveal his crush on Schmitz? Absolutely. Did they know that Schmitz and Amedure, at the very least, weren’t going to walk off into the sunset together, and that Schmitz might fly off the handle when he learned his crush wasn’t female? Probably.

Exploiting the guests, even though it certainly isn’t noble, is the practice of daytime talk shows. Every single one of them does it, and unfortunately, some members of the mainstream media also do it. When Schmitz got the call to appear on the show, he should have known what he was getting himself into.

This isn’t to trivialize Amedure’s death; it still is a tragedy. Although “Jenny Jones” provided a forum for the tragedy, it should not be held accountable for it.