The influence of the press has been based on its having been, for most people, the most convenient source of publicly circulating information. Once having attained that position, (around the time of Benjamin Franklin) journalists found they were able to exercise a great deal of influence by mixing their own bias into the flow of information.

The web is inexorably and irreversibly undermining for most people that status as ‘most convenient source of publicly circulating information’. Journalists thus have to both accept becoming a less important information source, and reduce the amount of bias if they don’t want it to become ever more blatantly obvious (as consumers compare the journalistic product with alternate sources).

Our current generation of journalists seem for the most part utterly unable to navigate this challenge, hastening their own downfall, and on balance I think I would rather have it be that way.

The vestigial abuse will be the journalism schools, lurching on like zombies.