What happened to the news?

Sometimes I wonder what the nation's priorities should be, and what the "general public" really is concerned about. I was catching bits and pieces of "news" all day long from different sources -- radio, TV, even the Internet. What would Martians think were important to us if they landed and monitored our information channels today? 1. Wal-mart and the number of Valentine's Day cards they expected to sell. 2. The new Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition (it has a bunch of models on the cover instead of just one). 3. How the late night talk show comedians were treating Dick Cheney for his accidental shooting of a hunting partner.
This stuff all was presented as the most important things we needed to know today. All Wal-Mart did was send out a press release sayiing how many Valentine's they were selling and they get priceless publicity out of it from news outlets desperately looking for a Valentine's day story.
The SI swimsuit edition also was an announcement from the magazine. Again, tons of free promotional publicity.
The Cheney story -- later in the day we actually heard that his hunting partner was having heart problems due to the injuries he suffered. The late night shows came close to the truth. One of David Letterman's top 10 excuses for the Cheney shooting incident was "it finally got that damn Iraq war off Page 1." We got a horrendous war, escalating national debt, a major lobbyist scandal and thousands of firms, including Wal-Mart, exporting jobs and money to gradually erode the quality of life in America. And all we hear about are Valentines, swimsuits and birdshot.
Is this the sign of a healthy republic?