Why tell them the actual hard or complex or murky truth, about anything?
What is the point?
Normally, you, as media, don't know that truth, about much of anything.
Truth is also very complex and obscure. It involves sides or points of view you don't want to give a hearing. It often involves tedious excursions into either the past or into differing theories, and inconsistent and boring facts, about almost everything, every topic.
So, you keep it simple, even for hard subjects. You find the good, sensational, even if inconsequential, events.
They aren't news, really; they are more like what is called human interest stories.
That is all most people can handle any more really, and you know it very well, and you cater to this, rather than try to swim upstream against this tide of ignorance and superficiality. Your job is not to educate, enlighten, or enrich really. You are mainly about selling copy, even now, even in the information age.
You tell them, over and over again, either the kinds of things they want to read or hear, or you tell them ideological themes you want them to affirm or adopt. You trot out opposing views you want them to knee jerk reject when they read or hear them.
You don't want, and don't have time, either on the air or in print, to get them to reflect deeply on them really, and if it's either printed comments or call in, what do you expect from this dumbed down population anyway, really?
It is that simple. Both sets of material sell. It applies to Fox News, Breitbart, NPR, NYT, Washington Post, you name it.
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