Well they are doing something right... Not everyone wants to hear everything thats going wrong. Have you ever watched your local news. They always switch from terrible things to inspirational stories or funny stories.
The turned the oil spill in to an endorsement fluff story.
Its called a segue. They're talking about the oil spill, they segue into animals and the oil spill which then segues into their guest. When people have the attention spans that they do, using this method of broadcasting helps the ADDs of the world because there's no interruptions to break their focus.