The same could be said for non-American media, but American media in particular always hops between different topics and only one at a time.
Take, for example, news surrounding the mustard orange man with a red hat. At first, the news was swirling about how he was elected for a second term despite being a felon, but eventually the media pretty much forgot about that and went to his stance on climate change (that is, he believes it doesn’t exist and thinks that oil and gas are the most amazing thing in the world, ever), then to the huge budget cuts (e.g. medicine, foreign aid, NASA), then to the ICE raids and military deployments in cities as “police”, and now to “the files”.
He is still a felon, still pushing for fossil fuels, still cutting funding for critical services (while increasing budget for his own benefit, like the rebuilding of the east wing of the white house to be glittery gold, military spending, fossil fuels industry…), still using ICE to raid the communities and families of both legal (including U.S. citizens, what the hell!) and “illegal” immigrants (nearly all of which don’t have a criminal record, don’t think 3 years olds are gang members…), and still using the military in various different cities as “police”.
Questioning orange man’s relation with bald egg man should be rightfully done, but why is the media practically ignoring everything else (esp. given that he was already convicted for doing similar acts as well as a bunch of other naughty stuff to do with money and government documents)
The American media can only latch onto one “hot” topic at a time and it’s infuriating. You go to any of the news about orange man right now and it’s all about non-Sonic billionaire eggman. The public is not as “one brain cell” as the media, but still, most people in the U.S. usually latch on to one thing only (whether it’s ICE, the budget cuts, or the files, ESPECIALLY the files, it may as well be a copypasta at this point)
Similar could be said for big non-orange topics too, like on Israel (their invasion and genocide in Gaza, settlement of the West Bank, bombings of Lebanon, Syria, and now the “scary” proposal that - gasps - mentions a Palestinian state, etc.), Russian invasion of Ukraine, etc.
Why is the American media like this? Same could be said for all media, but American media in particular seem to always be tunnel visioned to one issue at a time. The American public also seem pretty tunnel visioned to a single issue, though not to the extent of the media companies
Note: I am not an American and do not, have never, and probably will never (due to the anti-immigrant administration) live in the US. I am not saying “haha Americans are dumb”, that wouldn’t be very nice. I just read a lot of news, some of which is American, and this has been a weird pattern I’ve been noticing and it drives me crazy.
It’s the 24h news cycle. Most news sources are battling for your attention/clicks every day and if they keep digging into a story that people already know, they’ll get less clicks. It has to be new or it just gets scrolled past. This isn’t unique to america. It’s everywhere. Even here on lemmy.
Steve Bannon has recognized this and weaponized it for Trump with his ‘flood the zone’ approach. Keep blasting new headlines and nothing will really stick.
I’d argue this is why the government shutdown and the Epstein files are so politically important.
If the government is shut down, all the new things are just different ways in which the government shutdown is breaking stuff. No healthcare. No SNAP. Furloughed workers. Airports without air traffic control. It was a rut for Republicans since the 24hr news cycle couldn’t move past the shutdown. Then Democrats went and handed them a ladder because they’re abysmal at doing politics.
And the Epstein files play into the conspiracy brain that has been cultivated in the right wing mind for so long. 24hr news cycle moving on from the story feels like the media trying to bury the story, which feeds into that conspiracism even more. And since this isn’t a made up conspiracy theory, right wingers can’t control the narrative as well as they usually do. There’s a reality to run up against. Everyone already knows who Epstein was and what he did. Trump is obviously implicated. And the House leader has shut down the entire House to prevent the Epstein files from making any progress towards a public release. That obviously feeds into the conspiracy that the files are damning and powerful people are working together to cover it up. I think Marjorie Taylor Green recently announced she’s quitting her current public office role as a result of backlash from wanting to see the Epstein files released and fighting with Trump over it. These are wedge issues that don’t work in Republicans’ favor.