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Notes on changing media: In the wake of Katie Couric’s stepdown …

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Here Brent Bozell notes,

On NPR, evening anchor Michele Norris mourned that “when you reach back to the era of Rather and Jennings and Brokaw, it seemed like getting an anchor job in the past was much like a lifetime appointment, much like a Supreme Court justice.” Media reporter David Folkenflik answered that “holding one of these jobs is no longer being one of the highest priests of journalism because the notion of authoritativeness has been undermined. Even the New York Times does not command, in some ways, as absolute a voice about what is news and what isn’t anymore.”It is refreshing that Americans today reject the notion that we should bow before the network TV anchormen as the most hallowed of political actors, let alone “priests of journalism.”

Most observers expect this situation to favour non-received wisdom and alternative views. One outcome has been legacy media decline. Indeed, many don’t like it for that very reason. There has recently been a trend to question or dismiss the traditional get both sides approach to science journalism, which will likely increase the growth of alternative media, especially when top pundits are consistently wrong. Meanwhile, a number of options for government funding and control of mainstream media are quietly promoted, in order to arrest the decline.

Some have wondered whether the intelligent design controversy would even exist, except for the new information society.

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