Going to the Moon only took something like 63 hours, going to Mars would take 6 months.
It was possible for the media to catch the public's attention every day of an Apollo flight to and from the Moon and they made the headlines also every day, because it lasted one week or at most 12 days.
Even when there was a Soviet flight, it made the headlines. The FIRST time(I remember) there could be one or 2 or 3 days WITHOUT any headlines concerning a spaceflight was with Soyuz 9 (Nicolaiev and Sevastianov) in june 1970 when the flight lasted 17days 17 hours. Then there was Soyuz 11 with Salyut 1. I had to leave for Switserland late in june 1971 (Ranger camp in Leysin) without knowing what was going on in space. I was quite frustrated...and then, in Switserland, my eyes cought the headlines of a newspaper concerning their tragic end. I was very upset, to say the least!
True, if the flight involves going somewhere, it's far more interesting than staying somewhere. That's why I don't agree with those who need to argue about "colonizing Mars" in order to justify going there in the first place.
The problem is, it seems even harder to sell a manned space program just for exploration sake than if the intention is to stay there and risk facing "boredom".
(I hear you already: Mars is a huge surface to explore and there is no time for boredom; ha, but isn't the forever changing Earth surface (seen from LEO)also a continuous rediscovery of our world? Aren't all those weightlessness effects on things and ourselves full of surprises (good or bad)?). And isn't Mars much more the same all over its surface than it's the case with Earth?
There is a lot of contradiction coming from space advocates: If one doesn't want a repeat of the Apollo program, this time on Mars, how will we ever going to see astronauts on another planet in our lifetime?

Raoul