I tune into NPR every now and then in the car to see what BS they're spewing now. Today, it's about a smugglers boat and the captain abandoned ship. THey didn't say how. So the people being smuggled were in charge of piloting the boat and called for help. NPR said that they think that the responding fishermen were probably afraid of helping because they didnt' want the Greeks (closest nation) to think they were doing the smuggling.
It's almost like NPR is an entertainment source of stories and not news.
In the 1990s, when CNN Headline News aired on cable non-stop with a repetitive 30 minute show containing the top stories (hence the name "Headline News"), everyone was hooked. No matter what your schedule was, you could tune in and see the top stories at that moment including politics, sports and weather. If you missed something you wanted to see, just wait 30 minutes and probably get a chance to watch again.
Then they went to a full 24/7 CNN programming effort where they offered full length stories and discussions. The problem they discovered is there's just not enough new stories of interest to fill a 24 hour news cycle.
So, they started interspersing segments that were more opinion or non-news content to fill in the day for those who didn't want the same stories repeated every hour. Ted Turner labeled the channel "
Infotainment" to describe the merging of news and non-news content in order to fill up a 24 hour broadcast day.
Unfortunately, people have gravitated more toward the entertainment segments, which quickly became the primary source for their "news."
Once FB and Twitter became massive, it was reported by studies that most people received their daily news content from social media as more people totally abandoned the Main Stream Media newscasts.
In order to compete, news agencies have to offer infotainment in some form. If they don't, viewers/listeners will turn elsewhere.