[ComradePhil]

> that for some very brief window in time we actually had a media with integrity and ethics, even if completely serendipitously

I would like to request you to entertain the possibility that the media became so powerful and influencial for a brief period that they convinced everyone of that idea... the information revolution just helped break the facade by democratising access to information... because of which their model of story-telling which was based on large uninformed masses (or masses homogenously disinformed with biased story-telling) no longer worked.

[somenameforme]

I'm always open the consideration of any reasonable idea, but you need evidence. I can provide plenty to the contrary. For instance in the 1970s the media, spearheaded by the NYTimes no less, published the Pentagon Papers which (predictably) put the paper in direct confrontation with the government and the endlessly influential military industrial complex in particular.

And that led to a high stakes confrontation with the paper itself facing government pressure and lawsuits that went all the way to the Supreme Court with what would have been devastating consequences had they lost. Of course by 2013 when the Snowden leaks hit this had all changed. The NYTimes had already long since turned into the sort of agency that chose to more regularly run with headlines like "British Intelligence Chiefs Say Leaks by Snowden Hurt Security", "Leaker's Flight Raises Tension", and such other tripe - frequently engaging in a mixture of ignoring, misrepresenting, or defending what Snowden had revealed.

But the in the heyday of media, I do not see any reason to believe that people's judgement of the media was flawed. I'm certainly interested to see why you think so though!