I agree with you that soft news will and maybe already is preferred over hard news. Buzzfeed is definitely a reason for that. Twitter also is a factor into this soft news push. Headlines gain more attention because of Twitter’s character limit. People are less interested in reading the details of a story than hearing the story in two sentences or less.

My question is, will hard news have some sort of renaissance in the next 25 years or so? Trends are often like a pendulum, swinging back and forth, reaching the peak of each side before returning. What would make people interested in reading every fact? I think the Trump administration is helping hard news, as people need to read into what Trump says. That being said, Buzzfeed is at its most popular right now. Will Buzzfeed ever feel a responsibility to focus on hard news?