People from all walks of life have had it up to here with the media’s rampant insistence on reporting the news, however indirectly, according to a survey commissioned by the Huffington Post.
“When I check the news each morning, I expect to see favorable reviews of bands I like, tips on catching Mewtwo in Pokémon Go, and uplifting stories about dogs which think they are people,” said Courtney Barker, 28, of Baltimore. “It’s just election this and Aleppo that and something something salmonella FDA. Who cares about this crap?”
Analysts have been lambasting media outlets left and right for their increasing departure from traditional standards of ethical reporting, which has led to skewed and highly compartmentalized portrayals of contemporary politics and life events. However, they were surprised to learn that the general public wants less, not more, reporting.
“Sixty eight percent of survey respondents said they did not care whether we called out Donald Trump on his falsehoods, provided that we included a shocking picture of a Kardashian in the sidebar,” said Huffington Post news editor Freya Larson. “Look, we only did this survey to get our advertisers to take us seriously as a news outlet. We didn’t expect some newsworthy results like this.”
Observers have pointed out that HuffPo, as the site is affectionately called by nobody, was stuck with column inches to fill and nothing but actual content to fill them with.
“On the one hand, the public’s rampant disinterest in what you might call ‘objective truth’ is a critically important issue that – hypothetically – warrants serious attention from reporters and policy makers alike,” said Larson. “On the other hand, that piece we ran about the panda bear with its own Twitter feed is going to get ten times the traffic as this story. So I’m just going to start drinking now, if you don’t mind.”
Ontological realists the world over greeted the HuffPo survey with gloom and a lot of bourbon. Metaphysical idealists, however, while optimistic about the results, asserted that the survey is no more valid an idea than anything else dreamed up about the world and that we should just all go about our business and stick to Facebook friends who validate our belief systems.