Welcome to this 14th annual selection of a few of the year’s most over-hyped and underreported stories. With the news business, especially newspapers, undergoing a not-very-slow collapse (R.I.P. Post-Intelligencer), and hard news coverage usually the first victim of tightening budgets, there was more underreported news than ever this year. Fear not, however. America’s addiction to trivial distractions can withstand any assault from economic hardship–or from reality.