Journalism

Journalism informs. Journalism entertains.
"Informing" the public includes functions of manners-management ... "toilet" training: which fork to use, when you need a new car ... and when three new cars aren’t enough.
Informing the public includes misinforming the public. (It’s such a laugh that information managers always believe that management -- centralized, hierarchical -- can tell the information from the disinformation!) (As thought the Vatican had ever actually been in touch with God!) (As though government could ever know the pulse of anything but its most immediate oligarchy!)

Journalism provides employment for journalists (and for printers, ad agencies, pulp mills, word processors ...)

But those are not the only, not even necessarily the main, purposes for journalism. The most important function of journalism, from a management standpoint, is to know when to soothe the public so it will roll over and go back to sleep, and when to prod the public so it will jump up and bite.