This is an actual CNN.com headline:

Palin Re-Tweet Raises Questions

And the actual lead paragraph:

Normally, it's what Sarah Palin tweets that makes news. This time it’s what she has re-tweeted.

The "substance" is that Palin retweeted a comment promoting Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal.

The piece ends:

A Palin spokesperson was not immediately available for comment but Rebecca Mansour, a Palin aide, subsequently expressed skepticism on Twitter that the media would take notice of Palin re-tweeting "something that stands [with] gays."

The media not taking notice of something that Sarah Palin said? Don't bet on it.

This reminds of NBC reporter Kelly O'Donnell's New Year's Resolution for Palin on this weekend's Chris Matthews Show:

MATTHEWS: And how about a resolution for Sarah Palin? Kelly?

O'DONNELL: Well, I think when people talk about her not knowing enough on big issues...

MATTHEWS:Yeah.

O'DONNELL: ...instead of reaching all the way to look like she's worldly and so knowledgeable on big issues, demonstrate competence on smaller issues as they come up, things where she does not already have a wheelhouse, not energy where she was good in Alaska...

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

O'DONNELL: ...but new issues. Not reach too much, build a base of people who think she knows what she's talking about.

How about a New Year's resolution for all corporate media pundits and reporters: Don't spend any time talking about what the half-term former governor of Alaska says.

The earmarks story is a peculiar genre of journalism wherein you focus on how much government spending is directed to legislator-specified projects--generally without pointing out what a tiny fraction of total spending this is, or that without the earmarking this money would be spent anyway, on some project chosen by the executive branch. Then you rattle off a list of earmarked projects, often provided by a partisan source, which are generally chosen not for their inherent wastefulness but for their comedic potential.

Thus NBC Nightly News' Kelly O'Donnell on December 14:

Senator McCain's staff pointed to a few examples they call unnecessary spending: $208,000 for beaver management in North Carolina, $235,000 for noxious weed management in Nevada, $413,000 for peanut research in Alabama, and $247,000 for virus-free wine grapes in Washington state.

Now, all these are locally important agricultural products and/or problems, which would seem to be natural candidates for earmarks. But they are actually good candidates for mockery, given some basic laws of humor:

• Beavers are funny because animals are funny and because, well, you know.

• Peanuts are funny because peanuts are funny. (Substitute "wheat research in Kansas." See, not funny.)

• Wine grapes are funny because wine is funny--it makes people drunk! And drunks are funny.

For the life of me, though, I don't understand why noxious weed management is supposed to be funny. Maybe Nevada is funny?