Thanks for the response earlier. Coverage of skaters like Keegan is also part of the PR point I was trying to make. Skating is increasingly a small fish in the big (and getting bigger) pond of sports, especially in the US. It really has to fight for position and notice any way it can. Listening to many of the teleconferences with the top contenders last week, you could almost tell which of the reporter were ones who cover skating as a sport and understand the technical details, versus the one who cover it as a curiosity among all their other assignments, or worse as piece of fluff entertainment. If the press were to take the time to notice that depth among US men has gotten better and was on display last night, skaters like Keegan and Armin and Dornbush might get a boost in being introduced early to the public. That's always a nice set up for the next cycle
One of the challenges of this is that you're talking about the journalism industry — and in industry that has lost tens of thousands of people among their ranks. Not every paper has the resources for a Brennan, Hirsh or Judd (the Seattle Times' Olympic reporter). And less and less papers have such resources to have someone cover the sport full-time. Most papers have had to pick and choose what they cover...and in some cases they choose to cover figure skating, as you said, as a curiosity or fluff assignment.
That said, I think there's a great opportunity for some bloggers and skating sites (such as GS) to step up and really talk to these skaters and get to know a little more about them. I think Aaron at Loops, Axels and Spins really has that potential, especially since he's friends with them on Twitter on Facebook. And I think there are some other bloggers that do this.
The media for so long has been the ones to cover the news and I really believe that good figure skating reporting and journalism doesn't necessary have to come from the mainstream media.