News media is falling down “in covering the big trends”

I’ve visited and written a lot about Ukraine and the Middle East lately. The tragic events happening there are real news, worthy of world attention. But where we in the news media fall down is in covering the big trends — trends that on any given day don’t amount to much but over time could be vastly more significant than we can now imagine.

Thomas L. Friedman, “What Is News?”, The New York Times (27 July 2014), SR 11.