“…The positive consequences of soft news for the political process remain to be demonstrated." Remarkably, though, this pattern of reasoning has been criticized since the 1990s (e.g., Dahlgren & Sparks, 1992;Gans, 1974Gans, , 2008Sparks & Tulloch, 2000). A common factor in critical analyses of the news gap is that they do not deny the value of ratings, shares, circulation figures, surveys, people's opinions, or self-reports for measuring news consumption, but their accuracy in reflecting people's news preferences or appreciation of journalism.…”