The news departments have become corporate profit centers. And their only obligation now is to their shareholders. Which is to create large audiences and viewership so they can sell more ad space. So they're airing stories that appeal to the prurient interests that all of us have in the reptilian core of our brain: for sex and celebrity gossip. And now, for terror. So they give us Kobe Bryant and they give us Michael Jackson. And they give us Laci Peterson and they give us lots and lots of terror alerts. But they're not telling us the really critical stories that impact our way of life.

Real Time with Bill Maher (22 October 2004).