"News to Use" or Useless News?

Sometimes I wonder, do the blogs just serve as a complement to the mainstream media because bloggers are reacting to news stories, OR are the newspapers getting ideas for stories from the blogs? Maybe it's a little of both. I like to write about things that I am interested in. Sometimes I'll see a story in the newspaper and react to it.

When I asked the question about The Americus and wrote about the river front it almost seemed like The Morning Call was answering my questions in a series of follow-up reports. Even Bill White took a break from Movie Quotes and Dancin' With the Stars to write about The Americus at his blog. Coincidence? Maybe, or maybe they are reading the blogs to get a sense of what people are interested in so they can sell more papers. This makes sense because the news has become "give people the news THEY want" even if it's stories about puppies, celebrities, helpful hints and puffery rather than an objective reporting of the facts. WFMZ calls it "Your News" The MC calls it "News to Use." Actually most of it is useless news.

At a national level we have Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous who spent the entire first half of PA's Clinton -Obama debate NOT asking about Iraq, tax cuts, global warming, or No Child Left Behind. Instead they asked about Reverend Wright, bitter Pennsylvanians clinging to guns and religion, Hillary's Bosnia sniper story, Obama's link to a terrorist???? Is this what they think people wanna hear about?

I think it's a good thing that the bloggers raise issues that are important to people and the community and that there is a forum for a discussion of these issues. Maybe the blogs can be a catalyst for change. The world would be a scary place if we only had access to what the MSM has deemed as "your news" or "news to use."

What they are really saying is: "we'll turd polish anything you want into news if it raises our revenue."