Democracy: what’s popular rules

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Elizabeth Edwards, who’s husband bowed out of the presidential race in January, just penned a piece for the New York Times, decrying the mainstream media for skimping on coverage of complex issues. (What exactly those are, however, Edwards leaves vague.)

The press shouldn’t stick exclusively to sound bytes and storylines, as details about candidates “priorities, policies and principles” go by the wayside, Edwards writes. They should be digging their fingernails under Barack and Hillary’s healthcare policies, looking not only for worms, but also for healthy roots. In short, they should be digging, and laying out their archaeological finds museum-style, for the sake of digging.

Point taken, but what Edwards fails to take into account is that the mainstream media is churning out the kind of news people want to read, hear and watch.

People flipping on the news after a long day of work or school don’t want to feel like the news is more work or school. They’re not stupid, ignorant or lazy. They just know a good story and don’t, most of the time, want to be bored with the details. They want the dirt but they don’t want to have to go digging themselves for it.

For evidence of this, just look at the most viewed stories on the major news outlets. The “hard news” stories that dissect and detail healthcare plans, rarely make the top ten.

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