“We are, collectively, much like eight year olds chasing a soccer ball… Instead of finding ways of creating fresh high-impact journalism we’re way too eager to chase the easy story and too often the simplistic story and too often the story that misses what’s going on.” – Peter Baker

Peter Baker is speaking to the readers about himself and other journalists about how they race towards the “hot” story in an effort to get their currently popular story out the fastest, and in doing this they neglect deeper more important issues.

I think the most important part of what Baker says is that they write about the story that “often misses what’s going on.” It’s interesting to think that the “News” we’re receiving isn’t necessary for our benefit, but is out there because it’s what we will read.

This passage implies that journalists are carelessly having a negative impact on the stories they’re submitting because it’s easy and it’s what works.