This is not reflective of modern news practices. There isn’t interest because that interest hasn’t been spun up. When all attention has been pulled to manufactured stories, it’s reporters’ jobs to pull and manufacture interest into things that matter.
This usually happens outside the news room, investigative journalism being the exception. The lack of environmental NGOs raising a fuss may be part of the problem, if you think spin is the issue. (I do not. I think most Americans simply aren’t concerned with this, and those who are, and have influence, are mostly looking at rulemaking and liability ramifications.)
