"I don't care about the life story of all those people and their kids and how and why they were riding a bike in the forest 30 years ago." Actually, the New Yo

"I don't care about the life story of all those people and their kids and how and why they were riding a bike in the forest 30 years ago." Actually, the New York Times is particularly bad about this - not only about gratuitous background but also about gratuitous attribution ... very common to see an inch of column preceded by over an inch of attribution of a quote or whatever. I also find it very distracting and difficult to read. If you're interested, the Financial Times is the opposite - very concise, very pointed and even restricts front page stories to only their front page space. You can read more deeper in the issue, but the front page item is a self contained story with no page jumps.