WASHINGTON, D.C. — Media analysts report that 2025 has seen a dramatic decline in filler news content, leaving Americans dangerously overexposed to actual, substantive information. Since President Trump’s return to office and the abrupt launch of a global tariff war that economists are describing as either “a 4D chess move,” or “basically a game of Jenga,” news outlets have struggled to find time for their usual steady diet of feel-good puppy stories, TikTok trends, and breathless speculation about celebrity Instagram likes.

“This is devastating,” said Michael Henshaw, a senior producer at 24/7 NewsFlash Live, a network that previously made 40% of its revenue off of stories like ‘What Your Favorite Starbucks Order Says About Your Love Life’ and ‘Are Birds Real? Scientists Say Maybe’. “Right now, we’re being forced to cover real geopolitical shifts, economic instability, and policies that directly affect people’s lives. That’s not what our audience signed up for.”

The crisis deepened this week as yet another front in the tariff war emerged, with China announcing retaliatory taxes on exports including EV batteries, rare earth minerals, and the entire concept of artificial intelligence. As a result, major news outlets have had no choice but to devote airtime to what experts call ‘actual journalism’.

For many Americans, the shift has been overwhelming.

“I used to just keep CNN on in the background while I cooked dinner, catching the occasional story about a bear walking into a convenience store,” said Sarah Delmont, a suburban mom from Ohio. “Now I turn it on and it’s all tariff wars and tech billionaires going down on the president. I have to actually think about things. I hate it.”

Others have resorted to desperate measures to maintain their filler fix. Local man Jeremy Tate, 32, reportedly spent six hours scrolling through a Reddit thread analyzing whether a shadowy figure in a Taylor Swift music video was an intentional nod to the Illuminati or just a lighting mistake. “I’m doing what I can to keep my brain from processing real-world events,” he admitted. “I miss 2023, when the biggest crisis of the week was whether or not a billionaire should apologize an appalling tweet.”

Meanwhile, social media platforms are working overtime to restore balance, with TikTok influencers launching a coordinated effort to flood the internet with meaningless discourse, such as whether or not adults should be allowed to wear backpacks. “We’re doing everything we can to bring back the dumb,” said influencer and self-proclaimed “news disruptor” Chad Renshaw. “I just posted a video ranking the top ten most ‘mid’ cheeses of 2025, and I hope it helps.”

Experts warn that if this trend continues, citizens may soon be forced to confront policy details, international relations, and complex economic realities on a daily basis.

“This is unsustainable,” said Dr. Linda Matthews, a media studies professor at Harvard. “If people can’t turn their brains off with debates over whether pineapple belongs on pizza, we may see a mass existential crisis by mid-year.”

At press time, CNN had just attempted to run a “quirky” piece on a cat that learned to say “hello,” but had to cut it short to cover the collapse of two major trade agreements.

You may also like: