"News" vs. "Here's something you'll want to read"

        Part of the reason why watchdog journalism has declined in recent years has to do with the fact that it's simply not as entertaining as other news that's out there. In other words, many supposedly news sources provide things that are interesting to read, rather than news. So if you're trying to get someone to read your article, you can either do a lot of research and write a really really interesting piece, or you can do not a lot of research and write a really interesting piece. So there's little incentive to do extensive research because the payoff is not much more than soft-news pieces.
       This has to do with what we classify as "News" nowadays.  One of the top stories on Newsweek.com is entitled, "Are Dogs Stealing Our Jobs?" While this is certainly is an interesting story that will surely leave the reader feeling informed (here's the URL if you wanna read it http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/13/are-dogs-stealing-our-jobs.html), I'm not sure you can categorize this as "News." Instead, it might be safer to call it, "Something you didn't know before that will interest you to learn about."
       So, because Americans do want to read these types of soft-news stories that don’t require as much investigation as watchdog journalism requires, it would be more beneficial to watchdog journalism as a practice if we made clearer distinctions between what we call "News" and what we call "Stories." Keep in mind that the dog piece was among the first articles that popped up on a website entitled, "Newsweek." If this in one of their top news pieces, it would be more realistic to call it, "Funthingstoreadaboutweek." If we were clearer about what constitutes news and what doesn't, it might help watchdog journalism make a resurgence, because it will again be the most interesting and eye-catching thing to read about when people go to check the news.