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When and why did news cease being news and start being short stories and opinion? This entire article could have been cut down to the last few paragraphs and nothing of value would have been lost.<p>Look at The New York Times in 1921 [0]. Generally the stories are factual and to the point. The entire front page seems to be pure news. There&#x27;s very little storytelling here, at most there are a few timelines of events.<p>Look at The New York Times today [1]. There&#x27;s a bunch of factual and useful Coronavirus information but ~15% of the page is dedicated to &quot;Opinion&quot;, the second article appears to be pure speculation, the third article is a bunch of storytime fluff around a little bit of news and the front page has a mix of actual news and opinion pieces being passed off as news.<p>When did this happen? Why? Did people lose interest in actual news? Is there less actual news to report?<p>Perhaps this is regional? Take for example the story about the San Quentin prison. NYTimes [2] has the same drawn out nonsense as this Google story while Aljazeera [3] adds a lot of background but sticks to factual reporting.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;NYTimes_jul16_31_1921" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;NYTimes_jul16_31_1921</a><p>[1]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;oiiXU" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;oiiXU</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;06&#x2F;30&#x2F;us&#x2F;san-quentin-prison-coronavirus.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;06&#x2F;30&#x2F;us&#x2F;san-quentin-prison-cor...</a><p>[3]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aljazeera.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2020&#x2F;07&#x2F;san-quentin-prison-sees-600-coronavirus-cases-5-days-200701192059040.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aljazeera.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2020&#x2F;07&#x2F;san-quentin-prison-se...</a>