Flutterby™! : Wrong!

Wrong! All Answers Are Wrong!, in which Columbine explores "Derek Powazek, Bob Garfield, “On the Media,” conventional wisdom, snark, and a lot of other things which are way too long to just throw at you..."

My response:

The thing that I've realized about modern journalism is that controversy generates readership. "Did you see that article that...?". When Powazek says "...there is something worse than getting criticized online - total silence.", I think that he's on to something that's been ingrained into the newspaper editor's psyche: We want reactions.

Which means that your average newspaper article is what we online discussion old-timers would refer to as trolling, and that explains the quality of the comments to such articles.