The simple answer is that the trial is not partisan, and a lot of news engagement is due to partisanship.

If Joe Manchin and Susan Collins teamed up to make a bipartisan death ray pointed at us from outer space, it would get less media coverage than the Rittenhouse trial, because bipartisan stuff is not engaging news.

Yeah. Bill Gates just got divorced over this. Judy Woodruff, probably deeply disturbed that Bill was able to get a spot on the New Hour because he is a major donor to the News Hour (and PBS), used the opportunity to corner him with questions about Epstein at the end of the segment (he was talking about curing Malaria and general pandemic preparedness) and she tied it to his recent divorce. He pretty much locked up and went into politician mode punctuated by a goofy, nerdy loss of words. I was not expecting it at all and was completely slack jawed the whole time. I had a lot of respect for Bill and Melinda, still do but this was deeply disappointing to me.

> I had a lot of respect for Bill

That was your mistake right there. Bill Gates has been a criminal for longer than I can clearly remember, the only thing that kept his company from being split up was his political connections. Bill Gates did not deserve anybody's respect past the point where he started to use his wealth to buy access and cover for his misdeeds. And make no mistake: the rot that this caused has never really left Microsoft, it has only caused it to get smarter about how it presents itself.

The respect was from Bill and Melinda's tireless philanthropic work.

I see that whole philanthropic work as a giant white-wash operation. And: it's working. But if you first commit a series of crimes to amass a great fortune and then you go around playing Santaclaus I am not going to be one of those easily swayed to move you to the 'good' column. The origin of your wealth matters as much if not more than what you do with it.

I don't think it's the media that's lacking fervor in this case. It's your social media feed.

Hacker news is the only thing I use close to resembling social media. I am basing this off of people I know in real life, youtube channels and small talk before my zoom meetings. The difference in people having a position in the matter seems stark. Perhaps it's less controversial of opinion one way or the other so the rage bait isn't their to be reaped.

HN has its own share of extremism, uninformed opinions, and misinformation, just like any other social media. The participants here are just more civil and articulate.

Yep. People just aren't as interested in this case. There's no culture war component.

But there certainly isn't some suspicious media blackout on it. You can readily find coverage.

These companies are not simply a mirror back at society. People were interested in Rittenhouse because they were told that it was important. They could have elevated one of dozens of shootings by minors last year to media sensation status if they so chose.

The Rittenhouse incident was all over the internet the night it happened. It dominated Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter while armchair detectives scrutinized every leaked cell phone camera angle and posted their hot takes.

The media didn't tell people to get interested in it.

Do you think there was more genuine "early internet interest before MSM intervention" behind Rittenhouse than Ghislaine/Epstein?

Wait, you're supposed to stop any discussion whenever someone mentions the words "conspiracy theory".