Hasn’t this always been true, even in the glory days of New Journalism? It seems that many passive consumers of news – for several decades now – get no deeper than the headlines and a few talking points on current events or long-term issues/socio-political disputes.

The decline of leisure time (presumably some of that is/was spent on the news) coincides with the rise of the myopic world view of the average American who – ironically, thanks to technology – is never really out of the office.