Information Overload - The news example -

Information changes at such a rapid pace that it expires before we get a chance to comprehend it, analyze it and digest it.
We take things at face value, because of the impossibility to thoroughly investigate each story presented to us given the high volume of data we are barraged with on a daily basis.
To meet an ever increasing demand for news and information, and like any product when the demand exceeds the offer, companies change their strategies. They raise prices, or lower the quality of the product and use cheaper manpower to increase output and boost production.
As a result, accounts, reports and stories get plucked by media outlets out from obscure, unverifiable sources from all over the globe to quench the insatiable thirst for entertaining, scandalous, or even morbid stories.

These accounts are mostly unverified, sometimes they are entirely fabricated. Their main purpose is to entertain and monopolize the attention of the consumer.

Quality yields to volume and focus shifts towards satiating the inexhaustible appetite of the glutinous consumer with unsavory dishes.   
In later years, the line between entertainment and "serious "news became blurry. Our ancestors mainly had access to local news that directly impacted their lives.
News of bad weather, for example, prompted them to cancel a boat fishing trip, and news about a flooded road made them take a more elevated route.
News had a practical value for the most part.
Entertaining gossip was limited to social gathering, and besides its role in greasing the cogs of daily communal interactions, it also helped to connect people.
Information about a good carpenter in the neighborhood might be of help to somebody in need of new furniture, and news about a young nurse who just moved in could be a useful piece of information to an ailing elderly who might require instant medical assistance.
The local, practical news cited above could easily be verified, and ignoring them might affect our lives directly.
The information within small communities, does not involve news of supermarkets being shut down for renovation in other cities, countries or continents.
These kind of "foreign" news have more of an entertainment value, rather than a real, practical one.
They take our minds away from the vagaries of life, from our chores, bills, and pressing deadlines.