Era of White Noise

Yesterday I went to a Social Media Week panel hosted by Barbarian Group on "Technologists as Publishers." The whole thing was good, but what especially stuck out was a quote from Rob Harles from Bloomberg Paul Berry, CTO of the Huffington Post (at least I think he's the one who made this point). Anyway, he said we're in an era of white noise content. I think it's a super interesting thought. When you look at something like Gawker's redesign you get this combination of original reporting and enough other stuff (links, videos, pictures) to keep people satiated for a day. The idea is made all the more amusing to me in the face of this quote from Nick Denton on what he calls "fake news":

To follow the daily or hourly news cycle is the media equivalent of day-trading: it's frenzied, pointless and usually unprofitable. I'd much rather read an item which just showed me the photos or documents. And if you're going to write some text, take a position or explain something to me. Give me opinion or reference; just don't pretend you're providing news. That's not news.

I guess the difference is one of label: Are you calling it news or filling?