What would you call truly newsworthy stuff?

Or what the temperature is 100+miles away

You mean "I can't stand to be in the same room as them and they make me vomit, but I'm Ok to have a picture taken with them to get in the paper"?

Its laughable isn't it? Nothing but an attention seeking woman who wants to be in the paper and they actually gave her the time of day!

For a second I wondered if it was April 1.

You have to remember that capitalism is not just an economic system. It is also a social order which fundamentally restructures everything from the wealth of the nation, property relations, law, police power right through to the media. In such an environment should we really be surprised and/or shocked that news agencies choose to concentrate on items (celebrities, X Factor etc.) that support the dominant ideology of consumption?

I've long since given up on the mainstream news and print media. They are so hopelessly compromised as to qualify as a tool of brainwashing.

It's bad enough watching niche channels purportedly devoted to "science". Yesterday I skimmed through NatGeo's programme list and plucked four shows out at random - one concerning the "Lost Tomb of Genghis Khan", another to do with some church conspiracy over murdered saints, another on whether the Great Fire of London was covered up and a two hour show which dealt the possibility of invasion by an extraterrestrial species and how humanity might ultimately prevail (the war winning tactic was a co-ordinated international effort to attack the alien saucers with suicide bombers ferried by hot air balloons!).

Suffice to say that any far future analysis of human civilization will almost certainly conclude we have somehow taken a wrong turn since the Enlightenment.