> The rest of us can, but the question is to what extent the rest of us are or will in the future.
Look, if people aren't going to choose news-focused sites over social-networking-focused sites, then existing social-networking-focused sites that bait-and-switch their users into a news-focused experience are just going to lose to actual social networking sites, starting the problem back at zero.
I don't think you need to force-feed hard news to people. People who would read it will seek it out - the sorts of people who are content with what FB serves up are the kind of people who didn't read newspapers before the web and were content to get their news from daytime television.
It's irrelevant if the most fantastic analysis of news and current affairs is readily available around the corner if people stop going there.