World Cup and the fate of soccer

In 1994, the US hosted the World Cup, an honor we didn't deserve, but handled surprisingly well. While the venues were spread out a bit too far, each town put its imprint on the games. Having Ireland play in Foxboro was a great choice. (Having to sit on a plane full of drunk supporters after the game on my flight back to DC was... hmmmm... very frightening, however.)
The big story in 1994 (outside of the fantastic WC final, the Columbian own goal, and the US advancement) was how Americans hadn't embraced soccer, and probably never would. While it seemed to be a somewhat fair story to run at the time, I was aghast to see the same articles get rehashed in 2002.
Did sports journalists get lazy? Did they research this? In 1994, the term "soccer mom" was gaining cred as a phrase -- you could begin to run for office on that platform (in the Year of the Woman, which is another rehashed story on the pol side). In 2002, every mom it seems is shuttling off to soccer practice in the same manner that our moms shuttled us off to football, baseball and to some extent soccer.