Why do we read the news?

When i come to a new place, i pick up the newspaper very diligently. Partly because i can't have the morning chai without a newspaper, and partly because the newspaper tells us a lot about the society. The news that get TRP tell us a lot about the viewers. 

But this morning, a different thought came to my head - universally, the quality of news is questionable at best and abysmal, realistically speaking. 

So, why do people still watch news? Why do we still read fiction and propaganda labelled "news"? 

I think.. the reason is that somewhere, reading news makes us feel better about ourselves. Perhaps it makes us feel that we are more "aware", more "involved" in daily citizenship. Never mind that our news is the latest update from some celebrity child and some propaganda related to a complete non-issue that has found 4,203 petitions signed within 24 hours by "concerned citizens."