An all-too-real observation from New York magazine:

Americans viewed twelve times as many pages about Miley Cyrus as they did about Syria — even though the news sources published 2.4 Syria articles for every one about Miley. ...

The day after the [MTV Video Music Awards], Miley Cyrus stories accounted for 12 percent of total U.S. page views, while Syria stories accounted for 1 percent.

And this chart...