It seems like it does inform. That's not necessarily the same as it being actionable information, but I do think background information is useful. But I think

It seems like it does inform. That's not necessarily the same as it being actionable information, but I do think background information is useful. But I think there's another way to think about this story: consider the opposite of this article. Maybe "WATCH: Police officer saves deaf man seconds before train hits his car," or more abstractly "Fire department saves six kittens from blaze," or whatever other good news. What's the purpose of that news? I think most of us are happier to read it, but it is no more actionable - it is the same sort of background information. (Or, perhaps, it is in the same category as "entertainment" - things you consume for the sake of enjoying the consumption - but that seems like a poor place for the news to be, so let's hope that isn't it.) The purpose of informing you that the police is made of brave selfless officers and the fire department is made of brave kitten-rescuers is to influence you when you decide whether your city should increase sales taxes to pay its officers well and get the fire department longer ladders. To be abundantly clear, I'm not alleging a conspiracy here - I'm claiming this is a legitimate thing for them to do, and the thing society wants the press doing. In a well-functioning democratic society, the press reports on what's going on so that we can make informed votes. The information is actionable, though not immediately. So, conversely, the purpose of informing you that the police is made of trigger-happy dunces who get mad when a deaf person can't hear them, or that the fire department is being courted by some startup that tied fire extinguishers to drones and wants to charge them millions of dollars, or whatever, is also to inform you when your city wants to increase sales taxes for them. There are many other things you can do, besides voting, if you're asking "What am I to do." You can write to your elected officials. You can show up at local government meetings. You can campaign for or give money to political candidates that seem likely to be effective. You can volunteer with or give money to community organizations tackling specific problems (e.g., if you see a lot of stories about how the government is failing to provide social service X because of bureaucracy, I'm sure there's a local volunteer organization that would love your time or money). What happened when, for example, word got out that America was wasting its time in Vietnam? What was the purpose of them media showing Americans at home what was going on? The people who had been opposing the war as immoral or doomed were, of course, angry and cynical; the people who changed their mind couldn't individually do anything about either a war half the world away or the orders of the US military. But once enough people changed their minds, expressed in part (but by no means entirely) by who they voted for, the US started to withdraw.