News is biased, but not how most people think, it's biased towards conflict (and novelty, doomsaying, and sensationalism).
They could, however, be using those entertainment factors to cover, say, the fall of real wages, or the current state of unions, or what's actually in a Congressional budget, or any number of other topics that seem to get very little air-time.
I'd also like to see more air time devoted to the Congressional budget, but I can't think of a way of presenting it that the average TV viewer would find entertaining.
The OP referred to turning various kinds of interesting subject matter into entertainment, versus merely reporting it. I think this is actually an interesting idea, and I don't think it has really been tried.
The typical entertaining news story "writes itself". Gossip, stupid pet tricks, etc.
Indeed the entertainment industry is itself very conservative in its choices of subject matter.
That word "entertaining" is the root of the problem. People don't want to actually think about issues; they want to be entertained. You can't fix problems by being entertained.
They could, however, be using those entertainment factors to cover, say, the fall of real wages, or the current state of unions, or what's actually in a Congressional budget, or any number of other topics that seem to get very little air-time.