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I start a company. You start a news company and report on me. Over time, I notice that a lot of people are reporting on me and I don't really control my image that well, so I start a press office. And the press office is mostly honest with you, because so many people are reporting on me and no-one would listen to what I had to say if I wasn't mostly honest. So, there's no advantage in investigative journalism, which is relatively expensive. So, your media company hires less people to report on me and more people to just redistribute my press releases. Now, at some point, I'm going to notice no-one's really reporting on me any more. And what do you think is going to happen then, once I've got you all over that barrel - you think I'm going to keep talking about myself honestly? Even if I will, someone won't, and that someone will have an advantage over me in the marketplace so, over time, she'll win. That wouldn't be a conspiracy, at least not in the classical sense. You can get there with everyone starting off reasonably honest and if you shoot all the conspirators, then you'll just be right back where you started with the same underlying problem: Investigative reporting has to give you an edge in the marketplace that can't be eroded by the person you're investigating. I'm not saying that's the only factor at work - though many news companies do seem to be more about second and third order content aggregation than they are about investigative reporting, especially when it comes to their relationship with organisations like the police. But - it's not necessarily about giving people what they want, or about a conspiracy, the news agencies can evolve into situations where they're going to be wrong. No-one needs to conspire, and no-one, at least on the news agency's part or the consumer's part - and very few initially on the part of the initial provider - needs to want it to be that way. |