We like to talk as a species. In the modern age, we've moved from a half hour nightly news wrap up to a 24/365 news and information culture. We've gone from trusting experts and organizations to needing full transparency instantaneously on every tiny detail, whether it's owed to us or not.
And in the US, we're doing it wrong. With constant time to fill over the course of a day, we focus only on our own country. That's a lot of talking time devoted to two or three major issues. So we gossip, we speculate, we jump into the waters of conjecture and blame and fortune-telling. And it all means nothing.
Do yourself a favor and check the news once a day, maybe twice. If it's a headline that directly affects your daily life, click on it. Important patterns and events will make it through. The rest is just fluff.