Zero Hedge recently had an entry on the complete irrelevance of traditional media in the modern world. I’m not certain if traditional/mainstream media is completely irrelevant (I love The Economist), however there are increasingly larger cracks in the establishment. However, the focus of the Zero Hedge entry is not that traditional media is too slow for the internet age but that it is too integrated and invested in the current political/business power structure and forgoes hard-hitting news and reporting in lieu of maintaining “access” – even though the access generally seems to be used for personal gains than the public good.
It’s a point that Glenn Greenwald over at Salon makes repeatedly: traditional, insider media have seemingly become courtiers in the royal court that has become D.C. and to an extent, any and all big business reporting.
Zero Hedge, Glenn Greenwald, Jay Rosen, WikiLieaks, etc. have all been clamoring about it for awhile now: if you want to find breaking news that reveals information about established power structures, don’t look to the traditional media.
