"Infotainment" killing important reporting we need

I just ran across this quote from Chris Hedges on ‘The Death and Life of American Journalism’ at Truthdig.org:

"Newspapers, which engage rather than entertain, can no longer compete with the emotional battles that hyperventilating hosts on trash talk shows mount daily. The public, which has walked away from newspapers, has embraced the emotional carnival that has turned news into another form of mindless entertainment."

The same, unfortunately, is also true of too many blogs. That is, they think they must "entertain", rather than give news solely. This explains some blogs self-perceived "need" to post sexist pictures of scantily-clad women or other waste (in this case, hurtful waste) along with reports of local, regional or city news. These same kinds of blogs are also good at either "preaching" what is right, and true and good or they're particularly good at proclaiming the end of the world or the end of the city or some such tremendously horrible thing.

More:

"We are shedding, with the decline and death of many newspapers, thousands of reporters and editors, based in the culture of researched and verifiable fact, who monitored city councils, police departments, mayor’s offices, courts and state legislators to prevent egregious abuse and corruption. And we are also, even more ominously, losing the meticulous skills of reporting, editing, fact-checking and investigating that make daily information trustworthy. The decline of print has severed a connection with a reality-based culture, one in which we attempt to make fact the foundation for opinion and debate, and replaced it with a culture in which facts, opinions, lies and fantasy are interchangeable. As news has been overtaken by gossip, the hollowness of celebrity culture and carefully staged pseudo-events, along with the hysteria and drama that dominate much of the airwaves, our civil and political discourse has been contaminated by propaganda and entertainment masquerading as news. And the ratings of high-octane propaganda outlets such as Fox News, as well as the collapse of the newspaper industry, prove it."

Now, here's the part that indicts the "man on the street", the average citizen:

"Corporations, which have hijacked the state, are delighted with the demise of journalism. And the mass communications systems they control pump out endless streams of gossip, trivia and filth in lieu of news. But news, which costs money and takes talent to produce, is dying not only because citizens are migrating to the Internet and corporations are no longer using newsprint to advertise, but because in an age of profound culture decline the masses prefer to be entertained rather than informed...Money flows to advertising rather than to art or journalism because manipulation is more highly valued than truth or beauty."

Here, then, is the core of the problem:

"American society, once we lose a system of information based on verifiable fact, will become disconnected from reality."

It is really sad. And maddening.

Worse, it weakens the citizenry.

But what're ya' gonna do, you know?

If you want me, I'll be over here, banging my head against this wall.