Read the future in the papers?

Theory: You can predict the future by reading newspapers. The space devoted to a topic shows how important the topic is. (This can, of course, be generalized to other news sources.)

In practice? Problem one: Newspapers publish material they probably don't consider important. Near the lower end, some have pictures of scantily-clad women on the front page. The most respected newspapers place such stories as these on the front page: There's a new pet in the White House. While cats find marijuana a good substitute for catnip, it doesn't work the other way around for humans. A sports team won.

Problem two: Editors and reporters don't always know what's important.

Problem three: What's important today might not be important tomorrow -- let alone next week, decade, or century.