Comment 12 by reebus

People are stupid, pure and simple. I don't want to sound condescending or anything (I'm myself being quite stupid sometimes) but the general population in a consumerist democracy simply isn't making well-thought decisions, it's consumerism, and the consumers choose what is most appealing to them. So if a product is well advertised, eye candy and such and the newspaper tells them what they want to hear, or something they'll appreciate because it seems to make sense and doesn't require them to make too much mental efforts to understand it, they'll just go with it. And a more intellectual, truth-based paper might just be ignored because it's not as attractive to the masses. Adolf Hitler and most other republican dictators gained popular support that way.