Where has the real news gone?

  I have a question.  Why does Headline News still have the word "news" in its description?  I counted, at least three times, this so called news channel trumpeting its coverage of the daytime Emmy awards.  Since when are the daytime Emmy's a news story?  But wait, there's more.  Today, the very full figured Robin Meade actually stopped the news cycle to promote the country CD she's working on.  And then after Miss Meade got through telling us that any schlub with a six figure salary can record a CD with an A list producer, her colleagues continued to obliterate any semblance of journalistic integrity HLN has or had left by reading positive reviews of Meade's CD.  Doesn't anyone report the news anymore?  I mean, actual news.  No detective shows, no self serving Nancy Grace exposes and no Doctor Drew delving further into quackery.

  Look, FNC may be the evil empire but at least they stick to the idea of actually keeping you informed about the world at large.  Is this what it's come to?  Did I actually call FNC the beacon of journalistic hope in a world of mass market fluff masquerading as actual news?  I hear some of you rising to defend CNN but the folks at CNN wouldn't know journalism if you drew them a map.  Besides, CNN, under the very same field general who made the Today Show into an empty fluff ball, is now home to Anthony Bourdain.  Yes folks, when news breaks, Anthony Bourdain is on your television stuffing his mug and globe trotting around the world on CNN'S dime.   I guess what I'm wondering is, why do we need channels like HLN?  Better yet, why did we need the E channel?  I guess this is our reality, the fact that a corporation would take over a channel and then spend millions and millions of dollars to build broadcasting facilities for a bunch of talking heads from central casting who are paid to tell you what Jennifer Anniston had for breakfast.  This is our reality, the fact that a corporation is paying millions upon millions of dollars to give Robin Meade studio space to plug her side trip into country music.  I fear what will happen when the print media goes away forever and the avenues to acquire hard news shrink even further.  Well, at least I'll have someone on the E channel there to tell me who's sleeping with who or who is going to rehab.  What a world.  Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to decide between Lethal Weapon 4 on IFC or Keeping Up With The Kardashians on E.  On second thought, I'll just read a book.