Making the News or Reporting the News?

Yesterday I watched for two hours CNN. Two hours of smoke and empty dialogue. It was obvious from the scene, and later by an eye-witness, that the plane had run off the end of the runway; yet, all that was heard was speculation ad nauseum about "wind-shear" causing the crash. Then everyone who has ever been on a plane was "paraded", by telephone, to give their "opinions" of what might have happened because no one had any concrete information as to what had happened. Two hours of this stuff!
It is a sad thing to see--news being made rather than being reported. "No information" is not "news". For what the audience was getting (nothing) CNN could have spent five minutes reporting or updating then back to their regular reporting--noooo, far away shots of smoke, a constant string of non-sensical patter; their idea of news is about is as exciting and informative as watching water boil.
Once upon a time news was news. The reporters worked at getting it, news organizations spent time and money bringing a product worthwhile to the viewers and hearers. No more. Cheap sensationalism is the order of the day: and then there is the Bush speech's (that says nothing time and time again) that has to be shown during prime time; the inevitable "news conference" where no information is given (except acknowledgements all around) and no questions are answered because investigations are on-going; and the list goes on.
Political shows are becoming nothing more than platform for propagandists--the hosts nothing more than sound-boards. It is no wonder that the majority of the population in this country is so ignorant of what is going on--the media feeds them pap.
I can't blame all their ignorance on the media; people don't read discriminantly, with a sense of relevance, anymore. That is why astrology and "Intelligent Design" holds credibility to many. A subject for another day perhaps. Guess I'll go back to watching the "news".