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Personally, I would rather hear about people's coffee-drinking habits according to a heavily loaded "survey" by Hudson's, than the Backaburke Agricultural Society's list of honorable mentions in the sponge-cake decorating division of the Winamuchastuffa Regional Show.
News is relative these days to the audience that want to hear it. Much like web-delivered news, if you don't deliver news of interest to your demographic, they will get their news from elsewhere... and then their music... and their information on what specials are on at Harvey Norman this week.
Does your demographic drink coffee? Then a dodgy survey is news. Do they bake sponge cakes on a daily basis? Then the latest from the showground might be a goer.
Want hard news? Go to the ABC. Apart from the need to move the latest crop of Dr Who and Hornblower DVD's from their ABC Stores, they have no commerical pressures, therefore they can maintain the kind of newsrooms that cover every sponge cake competition in every region of Australia.