The fall of the fourth estate

It seems to me that MSM was ruined by the OJ trial. They had such riches delivered to them by this fiasco that they all grew lazy. They expected good stories to drop in their lap.
And since then, real news has taken a back seat to this kind of tabloid sensationalism.

They’re treating us like mushrooms. Keeping us in the dark and feeding us shite.

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…the mass media. What are they? They’re huge corporations, massive corporations, linked up with even bigger corporations. They sell audiences to other businesses, namely advertisers. So when you turn on the television set, CBS doesn’t make any money. They make money from the advertisers. You’re the product that they’re selling, and the same is true of the daily newspaper. They’re huge corporations, selling audiences, potential consumers, to other businesses, all linked up closely to the government, especially the big media. What picture of the world do you expect them to present? - Noam Chomsky, Sparrow Talks with Noam Chomsky
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“I deplore… the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them… These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound food. As vehicles of information and a curb on our funtionaries, they have rendered themselves useless by forfeiting all title to belief… This has, in a great degree, been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit.” –Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 1814. ME 14:46