I think that's primarily because of the spillover of the LBN rule that you have to provide a link to your source. It's sort of become a standard requirement (community enforced) in all forums and groups. How many times have you seen a post without a link and one of the first replies will be "Link?"
That's particularly true for regional news. National news is somewhat concentrated in a few major players (AP, AFP, Reuters, Christian Science Monitor, etc.) and the major news sites (obviously excluding FOX on the grounds that it isn't "news"
all look relatively the same because they're all using the same stories and sources. Local news is often far more important nationally than the so-called "national" news. Take the Voter ID law in PA for example. I get the local paper (Harrisburg Patriot-News) and it is amazing how much you glean from the print version that the on-line version doesn't cover. Regional stories are a lot harder to track down, but they show up on DU regularly.
As for national/world news, the paper is not worth much in that respect because I've already seen damn near every story on DU or elsewhere before the paper hits the press. Sadly, they're moving to a three-day distribution beginning 1 Jan (a disturbing trend).
As for TV, I shut that off in '82 or so. If there's a clip worth watching, it either shows up here or at Crooks&Liars, or both. There's been a progressively more annoying invasion of commercials in on-line clips, but it's still targeted viewing. The only time I'm exposed to "TV" is at bars and it's just an endless loop of the same shit. Every ten to fifteen minutes, they restart whatever loop they're on. Yeah, most of it is sports in a bar (I don't give a rat's ass about sports), but even then it's most of what they do. Boooooorrrrriiinnngggg.
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