No news is good news
When something momentous happens: some fool starts a war, the Martians land, a plane flies into a building then the whole country thinks "Hmmm, I should find out more about that" and accesses a news service - for big events and the BBC still seems to be the source of choice.
However, we live in an era where there aren't any wars (at least, wars in any timezone that are likely to cause us to flee our homes), the Martians have seen our TV programming and decided to stay away and there aren't that many crazies in control of aircraft. Under those circumstances, where most of the events that will actually have a material affect on most people are either political (new laws) or economic (no money) - both of which are abstract, complicated and out of our control, is it any surprise that most people don't actually care? It's not like the (good old) cold-war days, when the news programmes could dangle the threat of nuclear annihilation as a carrot to watch, and "big up" the fact that some foreign leader hadn't been seen in public and the new guy might press the button.
So what do the news people fill all these empty hours, on channels too numerous to mention, with? Stories about minor celebrities and who they snog, marry or avoid. Lurid, voyeuristic footage of suffering in far away countries and the random doings of sports "personalities" who can't string together a coherent sentence to explain themselves - if you know what I mean (harry).
In short, we have news broadcasts coming out of our ears, 24 hour rolling news channels that have 15 minutes of stories on a loop (and that hardly ever change at weekends as the news staff aren't working - but when most people would have the time to watch) for most of the day - and most of the night, too. Channels that are so desperate to cheaply fill their air-time and website space that they have descended into trivia and celebrity instead of going for depth and analysis. And using the televised, in-your-face, suffering of genuine victims, used merely to attract viewers: sitting on their couches shoving crisps down their necks, as people watch their houses being destroyed.
It is any wonder that most right-thinking people reject this form of "news" and only care about whether it will rain today, or if there are traffic jams on their way in to work? Having bigger or flashier graphics and tweets won't make any difference here, guys. The basic problem is one of quality and relevance.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
