I've come to a similar conclusion. Because news emphasizes the dramatic over the contextual, they're always providing me poor information in an even poorer context. That's just the way the business works. I've done something weird, though: I switched to plaintext commentary. So each day I scan my personal news site, http://newspaper23.com . It only does commentary. I find that by scanning the titles I can see what ne…
Your argument rests on the flawed premise that the reader is a passive fool waiting to be spoon-fed their morning panic ration. An article may be the top story of the day, but that doesn't mean it is important or relevant to me. Clearly there is a "news cycle" and every day there must be some top story. The reader is not compelled to pay heed. The discriminating reader does not perceive a newspaper to be some distill…
Is this really so flawed, at least in aggregate? Large parts of our society judge people by their awareness of these wider events over which they have no control, and by the value judgments they make concerning those events. When this is what it takes to be considered a good person, people will line up to do it: passively waiting to be spoon-fed their morning panic ration, just as you describe.