The public wants better news than it's getting:
Even during weeks when the economy was the top story, interest surpassed coverage. For example, the week of Dec. 8, 41 percent of people said they were following the economy very closely; it was 13 percent of coverage that week. From Dec. 15-18, 36 percent said they were following it closely; it was 10 percent of coverage.
But hey, let's talk more about abortion, gay marriage, Newt's wives, Obama's birth certificate, who "won" a debate, what video is "sweeping like wildfire across the Internet" and for fuck's sake, the motherfucking weather:
Keep stats like the above handy for when somebody is boring on in a column about how the all-powerful news media is simultaneously powerless to resist the desires of the masses for cheese and stupidity.
A.
One of the first blog-based books, the anthology Special Plans examines Feith's role in misleading America into war. Buy from 
Is the public even paying attention to the major media anymore? I thought ratings were way down, and internet usage was booming, particularly among the young.
Of course, the internet is for porn, but in between, one can find stories on the economy, which is freaking a lot of us out.
Posted by: Tom Allen | January 23, 2012 at 10:07
The media's sole purpose now is not to inform, but distract. As the propaganda arm of Big Business, the media's job is now to constantly bombard the public with hours and hours of useless information geared toward taking their minds off the fact that the biggest, longest running crime wave in the history of the world is being perpetrated by our corporate overlords.
Posted by: gene | January 23, 2012 at 11:01
Yellow Journalism. The Hearst empire. etc.
One of the biggest human fallacies is to look at the past and claim that we're better now. Or the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn anything from history.
Posted by: MapleStreet | January 23, 2012 at 17:21
even economists can't give the same answer.
Posted by: pansypoo | January 23, 2012 at 21:20