I used to be a voracious news junkie. That stopped years ago, starting gradually at around the time of the introduction of the 24-hour news cycle, before which a half-hour in the evening seemed sufficient to most. In between those extremes, it got better all too briefly with one hour late at night on NBC News Overnight. That, it turned out, was precisely enough.

The incessant – and initially inconsequential – padding that news organisations have had to come up with day after day to fill every 24-hour period has since taken over nearly completely, at first in television and now in most media. It’s not a surprise because it’s so much cheaper and easier to produce than anything of substance, and people do love a dust-up – even a made-up dust-up.

In the end, it’s as pointless as making a crossing guard work all day and all night because the crosswalk is there all the time even if people aren’t. Bored at first in the middle of the night, they’d perhaps start reflexively directing traffic that’s not there while motioning to unseen pedestrians to hurry along, and before you know it, they’ve gone a little funny in the head. You know, just a little…funny.

“…and, uh, he went and did a silly thing.”