The media : No news isn’t good news
▻http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21574515-signs-promise-and-peril-american-news-organisations-no-news-isnt
Americans who think media firms are putting out fewer original, thoughtful stories are probably right. Weather, traffic and sport now account for around 40% of local television newscasts. The average length of a story keeps falling. Only 20% of local TV stories exceed a minute, and half take less than 30 seconds.
On cable-news channels, live reports, which require camera crews and journalists actually to show up somewhere, have fallen by a third in daytime programmes in the past five years. Interview segments, which are cheap, have risen. Americans may also prefer talking heads because they increasingly prefer to hear opinion rather than fact.