When I was a kid there were two daily newspapers and three TV networks that provided daily evening news programs. That was all the news we got. And it felt like enough. Each day the editors would decide which news stories were important enough to print or broadcast. And they attempted to be fair and objective in their reporting. These journalistic corporations controlled access to the news. They were examples of hegemonies of access that I mentioned in the previous post.
Whether this was a good thing or a bad thing (or, most likely, somewhere in between) is way too complicated of a question to take on in this post. And the point of this thread is merely to show change occurring according to a pattern rather than to evaluate the change. So, as tempting as it is to get into an analysis of the merits of the old system vs. the new system, I am going step deftly around that question and proceed to explain how things have changed.
What changed the access to news was the access to technology. Once the World Wide Web became widely available there was no longer any control over the creation, dissemination or access to news. Everybody with a personal computer was, potentially, a reporter. Through blogs, forums, discussion boards and other similar means, anybody with an opinion could offer it to cyberspace. Anybody with a juicy tidbit of news could be the first to break a story. And anyone with with access to the internet could read those tidbits in their raw and unedited form. As mobile devices and social media became more prevalent, people on the street could make a video of news as it occurred and post the video online for anyone to view. The news papers simply could not compete. I know this because I Googled "how many newspapers went out of business" and immediately had access to numerous articled discussing the economic decline of journalism. I also know this from experience having known several ex-journalist who were forced to find other means to support themselves.
Along the way "objectivity" suffered as well. I put the term in quotes because I am not so naive as to believe that there really is such a thing as real objectivity. But, at least their used to be a sincere attempt to approach objectivity. Now, we have so called news programs that are unabashed propaganda machines for the polar extremes.
So, now we have much greater access to a much greater variety of news. We have to figure out a lot more for ourselves while extreme partisans can get a steady diet of what they want to hear.
Is this good or bad? Well, again, the question is too complicated to explore here.
But, the point is that technology brought down the journalistic hegemony of access. And, to end this on a positive note, I am convinced that it will all work itself out over time.
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