I'm guessing that Jim isn't familiar with the 'Court Circular' that the more upmarket newspapers (e.g. The Times) publish in a monarchy.  These doings of royalty (and some nobles) are *exactly* what you see in TNS and it's how I've always read them.  The front pages might have the "proper" news when it's warranted.  But tucked away in the social pages is perhaps a column telling you fairly baldly what appointments/engagements are in the Queen's diary.  (I've not tested this but I imagine these days with much less detail about actual locations before the event.)

When I'm at work tomorrow I'll see if I can find a few of our library's print copies and give some examples as unfortunately The Times is behind a paywall (e.g. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/march-15-6p99gcmmt).  In the meantime, there's a page here where you can find out events past which might give some idea of what I mean.  https://www.royal.uk/court-circular

Given that these exist with only the usual amount of press bias and censorship in a country like the UK, I'm much more inclined to suspect that what we're reading, mostly, is the TNS version of the court circular.  And we're only reading 'front page' news when it's more critical - such as the assassination etc.

My second concern is that later arguments in the article regarding different political structures existing side by side seem to revolve around quite a hands on Imperium.  Which I would quite agree is what published material has led us towards and perhaps allows the argument that a democratic world a short Jump away from some less desirable structure might intervene.  Even so, I think we seriously underestimate how much the lag of communications would affect things - TNS' existence notwithstanding.  I lived for a year in remote part of Africa and for two years in various parts of Asia at a time when it could take three weeks for a letter to get home and the same again for a reply to come.  However interested you were, news from home (both national and family) felt *very* remote - particularly the national news and it wasn't that you didn't care but it didn't have much impact, it was extremely limited to just major stories, and it was very easy to simply not register it.  I remember the Berlin wall coming down when I was on the other side of the world and that was memorable because we DID gather round a television - but this was pretty much unique in that two year experience and it had to be a world changing event like that to have the effect.  A major storm (actually a hurricane which the UK never gets), just after I left for Bangkok is STILL talked about today - destroying trees, killing people, etc - and yet I didn't hear about it until I returned home two years later.[1]

As one of the articles you quote reminds us, Traveller was inspired by the Dumarest series and as far as I've read in these books (I must finish them one day!), the empire is very very distant and hands off with perhaps considerably less travel/contact/trade than we typically imagine in the Third Imperium.  Under these conditions it seems very reasonable you'd have the variety of governments without anyone - even relatively nearby - caring very much at all.  I guess I'm picturing a continent like Europe (or maybe Africa) in the Middle Ages where you might be at war with a neighbour or two but have little idea and care even less what the monarch/chieftain/despot a few hundred miles away was doing.  Even if you knew about it, it would be easy to dismiss as "those heathens/foreigners/aliens" and leave them to it.

I don't know if this helps.  I still liked thinking about a much darker Imperium and it would be interesting to see setting material that developed this, so well done on the work put into making us think differently!

tc

[1] I also had an embarrassing moment at a party just after my return.  I managed to say, rather loudly against the music, "Who's Boy George?" just as everything went quiet momentarily.  He was of course at the height of his fame and the looks I got were astonished!