The news is a business. They do not sell information, they sell advertising, and they sell the most advertising when they have a lot of readers or viewers. Have you noticed that when Prince George was born in the UK suddenly everybody stopped taking about Trayvon anbd Zimmerman (except, of course, people who had a personal stake in that issue). One horrible case gets the page 12 treatment, an identical one a week later in another town makes the headlines.

Follow the news every day and you will see every major story is dragged on and on until something more sensational replaces it. If you have a busy week each story only runs a day or two, if things are slow, they'll drag a headliner out for weeks.

The news is a business, and editors pick their stories on how they think its going to sell papers, or eyeballs. So what really determines what news is considered important is...the free market. If you need to blame somebody, there's your villain.

That is not a criticism, the last thing we want is a press run by the government. But just because journalsim is free doesn't mean it can't be ugly. And this is not new, look into the journalism of the historical past. Once people started selling ads, the news was compromised for financial gain. Fortunately, people who buy advertising don't really care what you're reading as long as their ad is nearby. The only time they interfere is when its their product or their company that is getting the bad press. Then they can be ruthless.

As they used to say on Yankee Station..."There it is".