On TV "News" among other things

My thesaurus places gossip as a synonym or near-synonym for news (from which we believe we are getting our "information"), which is interesting when you look at how the accompanying dictionary defines the terms gossip and information.

Gossip: casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true

Information: facts provided or learned about something or someone. Knowlegde, data, and particulars are among the synonyms. News as well.

How can news be at the same time casual, unconfirmed reporting and fact, knowledge, and data? There is incompatibility in how we define news.

The difficulty is resolved when you remove those definitions of news as dispenser of gossip, reports or data or anything else that we might class as "information", and admit what it is: entertainment. The news we see on television is entertainment masquerading as "information". Every day the news is rife with sensational coverage of celebrities (which I'll get to momentarily) or murders, fires, crimes, political intrigue, wars....you know, the stuff of movies. I'm under the impression that we would watch the news more often if the content remained the same but the producers dropped the contention that it’s real “information”, to which we seem to have an aversion (“Ahh! They’re trying to make me learn!”). If people thought they were watching it for entertainment value instead of "information" they would be more inclined to watch, because the content largely falls within our range of entertainment expectations and we are infinitely more likely to seek our entertainment compared to information. Here's an experiment: Go to one of your television station news departments and ask them: "If I gave you $1,000,000, what would do with it?" and see just how much of it they'd spend on adding to their "news-gathering" capabilities compared to how much of it they'd spend on raising their production values or increasing salaries to attract better(-looking) on air talent.
Frank and Ernest puts it this way:


For whatever reason, we've increasingly, as a society, moved away from wanting to know what's going on in the "real world", retreating instead into the supposed fantasy world of 'celebrity', where things seem much more safe (in this case, perhaps the rise of the cult of celebrity can be seen as a cultural response to fears in post-9/11 America, and we avoid the “real news” because it’s simply too intimidating/scary and we feel powerless against various external forces).
What's interesting here is that we treat the ‘real’ lives of these "celebrities" as entertainment, when in reality, it's still "information", the same as on the traditional "news", but because it is prefaced by the word 'celebrity' we don't care/notice/understand the similarity.

Furthermore, I'd maintain that there is no such thing as celebrity “news”, only celebrity creation. Returning to my trusty dictionary, Fame is defined as being well-known or much-talked about "on account of notable achievements". Celebrity is simply the state of being well-known, with the achievement caveat notably absent. What this says to me, is that to be famous you have to do something, to become a celebrity you simply have to be well-known, and what better way is there to become well-known than to be on television every day. Therefore, programs that call themselves celebrity news are in actuality little more than celebrity creation, creating ‘celebrity’ for those profiled on their programs by making them well-known. How they decide who will become a celebrity seems arbitrary. It seems the pool of potential celebrities is limited to the realm of famous people, but every so often someone will rise from the depths of the proletariat and become a celeb without any notable achievement.

In the end, all television is is an appliance for advertising and marketing. Programming is just a window-display to get you into the store. It's the soft sell. All the news/entertainment/sports on television are pretending to be about entertaining you or keeping you "informed". It’s all a ruse, a hoax. It's all about making money from advertisers so they can produce more programming to get you to watch so they can get more money from advertisers. Even viewer-sponsored networks are all about getting you to donate to their pledge drives so they can produce more, maybe better programming so you'll donate to the next pledge drive ad infinitum.
This is why I respect the Home Shopping Network (and like networks) so much. It is pure television. There is no attempt to draw you in with the promise of information or entertainment. It is shameless, unadulterated peddling of product. The true nature of television on raw display. We want to sell you product and here it is. No extraneous noise, no false pretenses, just gemstones, stylish maternity clothes and toll-free numbers 'round the clock.