How to keep the news interesting

I followed a twitter link to this interview with Good Question man Jason DeRusha. The discussion on how the nightly news is slowly becoming obsolete intrigued me. Here's why...

I really think I might be among only a sparse few 31-year-olds in the state of Minnesota (or possibly even the country) who watches the 10 o'clock news most weeknights, and has a bona fide newsprint newspaper delivered to my doorstep every morning (WSJ). But why would I do this? I am on a computer all day, so like two thirds of the Gen-X and virtually all of the Gen-Y clans, I've gotten my overdose of stories from iGoogle, RSS feeds, twitter, facebook, startribune.com, cnn.com, (wcco.com? yea sure) well before I watch the news at night. I could be the broadcaster. I've already seen the stories five times, earlier in the day. The exceptions are:

1. the weather report, because they correct their forecast again every 15 minutes, so the later the better
2. special interest stories like Jason DeRusha's Good Question
3. op/ed segments like 'In The Know'

The internet is all op-ed, but then we have to get concrete facts somewhere. I often marvel that every network covers the major stories each day, and that they are all identical, and they are all exactly what was published on news websites all day long. Who decides behind the scenes what today's stories are going to be? Is there a secret bulletin that gets sent out at 5AM to all of the media outlets in the world telling them, here are your 6 stories for today?