Media Evolution Debate

An older friend of mine made the observation that really before the few large news networks and papers in the last 40-50 years objective information that everyone roughly agreed upon was not the norm. Yellow journalism, hearsay and rumors dominated common conversation.He observed that with the internet we're returning to what was this "normal" state with anybody being able to post something and gain widespread recognition, the difference of course being the rate at which this n

This is nothing new. Media evolves.20 years ago: The reach and minds share of Fox News and CNN are unparalleled40 years ago: The reach and minds share of ABC and NBC are unparalleled50 years ago: The reach and minds share of News Radio are unparalleled70 years ago: The reach and minds share of New York Times and other papers are unparalleled100 years ago: The reach and minds share of the town criers are unparalleled

Looks like you both argue for the same thing.In times before, news distribution was subject to editorial process and basic standards of journalism. Not that it wasn't without own issues, but it helped sort out outright lunacy, bigotry and conspiracy theories.Distribution in 2010s bypasses that and mass media are now secondary to social network rumour mills. The political outcomes worldwide and deterioration of Western democracies are related to this.

It's not just social media. News has transformed over the past few decades to enable this as well. Anybody remember equal air time rules?

To some of the older folks on HN - is this a new problem?The last few years have brought on a whole different type of newsmedia hybrid (the buzzfeeds, huffpos and gawkers) organization that is driven primarily by clicks and do not hold themselves to the standards of traditional print news. While there were dubious options on paper before (Daily Posts, National Enquirers), the internet is far greater venue for propagating bullshit with clickbait headlines. Some of the newer sites I'm seei

Unverifiable theory, but I think when the news was just the few media companies who ran TV and newspapers, selling a narrative was easy. Look how easily we got tricked into going into Iraq and staying in Afghanistan for 20 years. Now that news is more distributed (as originally intended) by independent journalist on things like YouTube and substack. Not only do these independent journalistic outlets exist, they are more popular than traditional news (TV/print), making various propaganda eff

I think there is some kind of illusion that the previous generation of medias were impartial and fair.But news always had an agenda. People with power always affected news. And even without that, the sheer imperfection of human nature makes any kind of communication a distored version of reality.It does feel like it's getting worse though, but I think it's just a feeling: we now have so many sources, and points of view, that we can see more clearly how much BS we are being fed wi

I guess what has changed is the amount of news and media people can have access to nowadays. In good old days, dissenting opinions were pushed into the inner folds of a magazine and all "no end in sight" news on the front page, because everything was about delivering good news and optimism. Nowadays articles exist as a website link ie there is not really a frontpage of sorts and then being negative sells a lot.Though it will be interesting to put together what the print edition of n

There weren't that many traditional news outlets in the past, and those that publish flagrant lies tend to get a reputation for this ( not that that ever stopped some of them ). Nowadays, I barely recognise half of the sources I see material forwarded from, which allows a range of much more extreme opinions / alt facts to be shared with the world without any real requirement for self regulation ( obviously, this is a contentious point, but I do feel things are a lot worse in this rega

yeah there's always been new takes on history and events but this was pre-internet. most western people get their info via internet, media, tv, podcasts, etc. i think we're in uncharted waters here and chalking it up to "its always been like this" is disingenuous. information distribution is becoming increasingly centralized and ran by a few corporations. the internet and smart phone era seems like a wet dream for propagandists.