*Note that this topic is aimed at America, but if you're not an American, feel free to give outside perspective*

What happened to our actual news? Way back when, every topic on the news was either very important or at least worth starting a conversation over. Local news stories had meaning because people actually bothered to talk to their neighbors and got to know the locals. American families sat around the TV and watched the news and genuinely cared about what was going on in their country. Back then, everything on the news was important.

And now look at where America is. In place of stories of local heroism, we see marriage announcements about celebrities, who will generate even more "news" months later when they break up. Instead of coverage of turmoil in the Middle East, we have to familiarize ourselves with the latest gossip and trends. The news magazines in the checkout isle are filled with useless information about topics that nobody cares about.

So I ask you...
In an age where the youth (excluding myself and some others) is obsessed with Twitter, Facebook, and status updates...
Where celebrity rumors are placed above actual stories of importance...
Where the news is only that during disasters and global events...

What happened to our news?

its not just american news, its everywhere and the reason is that people watch it, too many people stalk celebrities lifes instead of living their own, it seems stupid to me but then again a lot of people seem stupid to me.

Nezumi : I have to disagree with your major argument. Americans, heck, everyone, has always enjoyed sensationalist news. I remember Monica and Bill Clinton. I remember OJ taking precedence over other matters. You can go further back and read about the Kennedy family and what they were doing, you can go back and hear about muckrakers and yellow journalism and so forth.

Even Gen. William Sherman during the U.S. Civil War said one bad newspaper was worse than 1,000 armies, or something to that effect.

News is never fair, balanced, good, or informative. Newspapers and tv stations are in the business of selling papers and advertisment. Their job is not to inform the public. Their job is to pay shareholders and create profits. They sell what people are interested in. MOre folks like the Kardashians than world politics and hear the doom and gloom of wars. In the U.S., when Bush was president, we heard about wars every day. Now that Obama is president, the liberal media doesn't mention it.

It's always been politics. News has never been fairly presented to the public.

It's nice to see people paying attention to this fact.

This notion that once people were knowledgeable and intelligent, whereas now they are crass and obsessed with celebrities is a myth. People have always been excited about celebrities and irrelevant bits of information, it`s just that now we have more options to access it than ever.

News is a business, and the companies give us what sells. The main problem isn`t with what the media puts out, or even politics, but with the people who enjoy it. If people refused to watch celebrity news, it would quickly fade to obscurity. If the people demanded real objective news coverage and used the most reliable sources only (like the BBC), it would help immensly.

To be honest i don't think there was Real News to being with, one station tells one story, another tells another, whose the moderator in all of this? its hard to find a reliable source of information... especially nowadays.

warmaker : I still hear about the news every day. But that is because I watch MSNBC or read news articles from AP or Reuters. Even when Bush was president, the major networks didn't really talk about the news other than a once a week "x amount of soldiers died this week" report and then it was back to what Tom Cruise was doing.

... granted, when you live in Los Angeles, stupid celebrity news stories actually still counts as local news. Which is sad. Very sad.

Elara : In regards to the news that used to talk about how many American soldiers were killed on a weekly basis, why is it we don't hear about the three wars nowadays? Does it seem like there are fewer news items from Iraq and Afganistan even though we have more troops there than any time Bush was in office?

I'm not trying to flame or start an argument. I know you and I have different political and social views. I'm curious as to if I'm just being one-sided and thinking no one really talks about the wars because I want to blame liberals for controlling the media and it's bad press for Obama if we heard about the 13 Marines killed in Iraq last week.

If I'm wrong or not perceiving this correctly, do let me know.

warmaker : I hear about it still, so I suppose it goes by what news you watch. To be perfectly honest, most media is actually rather moderate or conservative since, as you pointed out, their main purpose is to sell ad space... so they tend to stick to the same things over and over again and don't like taking risks or making big changes. If the media were actually liberal, then they would be reporting the big details no matter who was in office because people have a right to know the truth and sponsors be damned.

I am not an American, so here is my perspective.

As far as celebrity news goes, it is rather useless. The extent of the relevance to the average person's life should theoretically be some sort of passing trivial fact but it can easily consume someone's life into focusing entirely on people who really you shouldn't care one bit about.

When I see an American-based news report that isn't about irrelevant personal manners of actors/actresses or musicians, I always take it with a grain of salt. My biggest issue with American media outlets is the accuracy of what is being told.

Let's initiate the controversy with the celebrity aspects. As said before in this thread, they seem to replace a lot of the local news because celebrities are a good place for profit. need proof? Just quickly examine the Dionne Quintuplets during the great depression (I am aware that they are Canadian, just making a comparison) and you will see exactly to what I am referring to. Yet, how accurate are these celebrity reports? The pure and simple truth is we don't know, because sometimes things may be done only purely for publicity sakes. Since we don't know the prototypical celebrity on a personal level, we simply don't know.

It is time for controversy 2.0! I find that as far as international reports goes, a lot of news based medias, as far as factual information goes, is sub-par. A good example is when there were some debates in I think 2010 about the healthcare system, some people asked what about adopting a system like what countries like Canada or England has? Well, I saw several reports that basically went on as though it would take months and months to have a critical surgery when that is evidently not the case.

After that incident in particular, I always took things with logic in the forefront of my gray matter.

The bottom line is, the media, especially American media, took a turn to the toliet and flushed itself down after the one's with power had their eyes bulge at the potential stack of money in front of them.

Sadly, newspapers and tv are in the business of selling newspapers and ad space. They aren't really trying to report the truth.

There are people who do try but they get shut out of greater circle of influence. This isn't new; it's the way things have always been. That's why celebrity gossip takes a front seat to real news. People will pay attention to it.

This is corporate America which runs on corporate advertising which sells you corporate products from corporate frauds with corporate agendas using corporate networks to entertain corporate bottom feeders who love corporate entertainment and rely on corporate jobs just to be a corporate puppet for the corporate system and a corporate brand that is corporate America. You want real news? You want real products? You want real America? Stop giving in to the corporate system simple as that

Real News is dead cause all people care about is the fluffy stuff and "BIG NEWS" "NEGATIVE NEWS" blah blah blah... Its really annoying..

The news over where I live is horrible too D: It is always about some miracle diet some random person no one ever heard of found or about single mothers trying to save big bucks on their grocery shopping and how everyone can do it if they buy the home sucky brand. Not to mention the celebrities news, that is what TMZ is for. I guess people nowadays only care about celebrities misfortune and how to look the best. Another reason news have stooped down to the level of reporting about gossip may be because they want to attract younger viewers. Also, mostly everyone uses the internet to check out the news now so the only choice the news channel have is to broadcast topics the mass would like, not topics the selected sophisticated few like.

I used to watch the news alot. But I learned that most of it was either depressing or boring so I stopped. No sense in watching it.. if all its gonna do is make you feel depressed.

All of the real news and "the truth" has been swept under the carpet to not be told to society, because according to the news cast and the government the "normal people" (us) are not important enough to know what is going on in our earth, so they cover it all up with news about our local celebrities lives, like Charlie Sheen.

The real news is mixed in with the celebrity news and other crap news.

Your question reminded me of a slightly outdated JibJab video:





I personally think it's hilarious.

The problem with news in general is that is has become a product.
News in today's world is something that needs to generate profits, and therefore it must be made "attractive". Somehow, this translates into mindkilling celebrity nonsense rather than actual interesting stories.

Whenever something genuinly interesting happens, it gets two weeks of huge constant coverage, and then dies, because we're sick of seeing the same old boring nonsense all the time. This, according to the newsbozos, is solved by finding some new piece of nonsense, and having us watch that.

That's what happened to news, I guess.

I think they realized that they're are a lot of idiots out there who care so much about certain celebrities that they want to know every move they make, but not be part of tge paparazzi. If you're gonna put celebrity news, it should be either about them having some sort of fatal condition, having a baby, or dying. That's what I think.

Yeah, the news does suck right now in the US at least. It's all biased or they just ignore important stories because they don't think it'll get them the ratings(all news stations do this). The sad thing is that I think I get the best news from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He tends to go after everyone who's doing something stupid. I know he has a liberal bias, but compared to all the other "real" news stations at least he admits it and isn't all that bad.

I think the other problem with the media is the people watching. If people didn't watch or buy any of the celebrity stuff, then the media might actually report on real news. Unfortunately, people have decided to idolize celebrities and think they can only make it in this life if they can just be like them. People also find real news depressing and prefer to hear happy stories when in reality life isn't like that.

well i dont know if this is relevant but theres this kids programme newws thing called newsground and it dumbs down the nes so much so children dont get worried im pretty sure at one point there was just a piece on its news that simply said, today in japan something bad happened with the weather, it left alot of japanese people upset but dont worry =.= (that article if you didnt know was about the TSUNAMI) but to be fair who wants to make kids upset by telling them the truth if they wanna believe in santa go for it (wow sorry got really off topic in this post)