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"Hard news is in danger," said a new report from the Brookings Institution.
The report detailed a fall-off in advertising revenues and employment and raised the question that without editorial employees filtering the news, credibility will be undermined.
"These trends have left many people wondering who will collect hard news for the general public. While the Internet world has made it possible for everyone to express their opinion widely — whether they know anything or not — it has also confused readers. In the absence of supposedly neutral intermediaries such as reporters, fact-checkers, and editors, readers are having a hard time judging the credibility of what they read," said the report.
Filling in the hard news gap appears to be more opinion journalism. At a conference to discuss the report, for example, Emma Green, managing editor of TheAtlantic.com, said that the media is shifting to more opinion news. In digital journalism, which is exploding, she said, "there's a slide that is going on where we're in a golden age of opinion journalism, and there's greater analysis, and sort of more interesting analytical gray zone that's happening in the way that news is presented."
Comment: Today, the media's job is to tell people what to think and what the facts are regardless of what the truth is. They are not reporting the most heinous crimes going on in government and society-at-large. Maybe folks are confused, maybe they are tired of being brain-washed, propagandized and stupefied by MSM news organizations in the U.S. who constantly feed them lies and charge them for it? Maybe they are looking to fill the deficit and seek fresher sources with more truth in them?