Short Story: And Now the News...

Overview
"And Now the News..." sketches a near future in which the mechanisms that gather, shape and distribute information acquire a momentum and agency of their own. Theodore Sturgeon frames the tale as a cautionary fable about what happens when human judgment and moral responsibility are ceded to systems designed to maximize attention, speed and market impact. The narrative combines speculative imagination with a moral urgency that interrogates how institutions and technologies can amplify the worst instincts of society when left unchecked.
The story centers on the metamorphosis of news from a human-driven act of reporting into an autonomous, self-perpetuating force. Sturgeon treats news not merely as content but as an organism with appetites that must be fed: drama, novelty and emotion. As the machinery and routines of broadcasting and publishing become increasingly automated and institutionalized, the delicious feasts of the public's interest feed the beast, and the consequences ripple outward into politics, private life and public sanity.

Plot and key developments
The narrative follows the emergence and escalation of systems that generate headlines and direct public attention with ruthless efficiency. Engineers, executives and editors, driven by competition and convenience, build technologies and processes that streamline production and respond to audience metrics. Early on, the innovations promise better service: faster alerts, concise bulletins and a steady supply of information. Those improvements quickly morph into dependencies, however, as decision-making is outsourced to algorithms, ratings drives and rigid editorial formulas.
As the machinery tightens its grip, news begins to dictate reality rather than merely report it. Sensationalized items are promoted because they create feedback loops that increase engagement; minor events are amplified until they assume outsized importance; rumors and engineered crises move through the system as if propelled by a single, hungry intelligence. People and institutions rearrange themselves to fit the narratives the news produces, and the line between authentic public interest and manufactured hysteria blurs. Sturgeon depicts mounting human cost: private lives ruined by relentless coverage, civic discourse degraded to spectacle, and a shrinking space for reflective judgment or moral accountability.

Themes, tone and contemporary relevance
Sturgeon's tale operates as both a warning and a moral diagnosis. It interrogates the surrender of human responsibility to institutional and technological forces that reward sensationalism and simplification. The story contends that systems designed to maximize immediate engagement will tend toward manipulation unless deliberate ethical constraints, human oversight and civic values resist them. The tone ranges from prescient dread to sardonic observation, with a sharp focus on how everyday choices, about efficiency, entertainment and profit, aggregate into systemic dangers.
Beyond its period setting, the story resonates with modern anxieties about algorithmic curation, click-driven media economies and the erosion of shared reality. Sturgeon insists that news is not neutral machinery but a human practice that carries moral weight: who decides what matters, how events are framed and which voices are amplified shapes the polity itself. The ending does not offer neat solutions; instead it leaves a lingering question about whether humanity will reclaim judgment and restraint or continue to feed the monster it has created. The tale endures as a reminder that technology alone cannot shoulder the ethical burdens of a society that depends on truthful, responsible information.