I think other people covered the main points, but when I haven’t seen mentioned yet here is the fact that, for the news to catch your attention, it has to be something exceptional. That shouldn’t be true, but many publishers believe it. They compete to have what’s new or different or exciting.

I blame this mostly on the big media companies, and also partly on consumers who believe that consuming news is a passive activity when in reality it’s an active choice. They could go find online websites and create their own RSS feed, for example, and then they wouldn’t be stuck listening to drivel. But it does take some work and some awareness.

For example, and I don’t want to go into details about specific political parties, think about all of the polls about the election. Those are mostly meaningless. We’ll find out exactly what public opinion is on Election Day. It’s not that you couldn’t have a poll, but if you’re posting new polling data every day it’s because you’re desperate to cover up for the fact that you don’t have anything new to say.