If you haven't read "It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News"[1] by Drew Curtis, then I highly recommend it to explain quite a lot of the process and thinking of the news. It might not be the most serious, and it is funny, but it digs into the truths of the beast.

1) http://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-News-Fark-Media/dp/1592403662/

It's a press release (well really a comment made to the press) used as a nice link-bait filler news article. Drew Curtis of Fark.com fame wrote a great book with this and more examples of news industry behavior that is even more true in the link-bait world.

http://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-News-Fark-Media/dp/1592403662/