Pathetic news stories used for distraction?

This may be an old subject here, but here goes anyway.

I logged into Yahoo homepage (US) to see what's "going on" in the world, given it's many current important events.

This is what made the headlines:
Hysterically laughing baby an internet hit, and
Home ripped apart to free stuck cat.

Now although these are heartwarming stories (which we DO need more of), is this the most important thing to broadcast given that we are almost (if not already) at WWIII?
Cats get stuck and freed all the time, and the baby laughing is very cute, but it's nothing exactly amazing. What is amazing is the seemingly lack of important events, which are happening constantly.

Originally posted by NuclearPaul
What is amazing is the seemingly lack of important events, which are happening constantly.

In the old newspaper days, these were called "human interest" stories. Chicken that can cluck the alphabet. Some guy with a long mustache. Stuff like that. It's there because as the name suggests, people are interested in it. We're monkeys and like dumb stories of dopey things.

The news still covers whatever dull politician or bureaucrat is signing some boring (but significant) treaty or something. Or the deaths of the few hundred people killed in stupid accidents on the highways this week (way more than are killed in Iraq, by the way). All of that stuff is "important," I guess. You can watch CSPAN if you want. Important laws being passed, etc. Ho hum.

But come on, man. That laughing baby is hysterical.

I think you are talking about the distractions that dumb down the populous. I work as a retail checker. Twenty years ago, for example, the periodicals available at the check out were such publications as: Psychology Today, US News and World Report, Newsweek, Popular Mechanic, Scientific American....
Now, it is National Enquior, Star, Soap Opera Digest, People.....
And, often customers want to engage me in dialogue about those headlines. Oh, they are so concerned with the material of the celebrities!
What a change from the times ago.... Such an astonished look in there eyes when I tell them I don't know who they are talking about! I disconnected from cable a while ago and have no concern for such celebrity distractions!

eh, I'd have to go with simply because in today's society, thats what makes more money. money is all anybody cares about these days.

As the media becomes more controlled, you'll see less and less of what is really important. The government keeps what they don't want you to know behind the scenes, so they don't piss people off, and start more protests, et c.

It's like the radio news especially, they spend a four minute news bulletin with about one minute of actual news and then the rest is celeb stuff, sport and regurgitated/recycled urban myth stories - you know the type, same story, changed location and people, often eastern European in origin or south American.

News - what news?