bionicDan

I think 20, 30, 50 years from now, when we look at media history, we’re going to look at the late 20th century as the aberration. It was created artificially by the scarcity of broadcast-frequency. The people who had that broadcast frequency created enormous monopolies, and with monopoly they had to speak broadly to huge audiences. What kind of journalism does that create? That creates a journalism of the middle.

Now we’re just back to the way it was before, when anybody with some verve could start up a publication and get it out there, and if it spoke to people, it would grow. Papers would take off, become hugely popular, and vanish almost overnight back in those days. And what does that kind of environment create? It creates point of view, it creates voice, it creates partisanship.

- David Von Drehle speaking about media coverage in the time the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire vs. today on WNYC’s On The Media

(Source: onthemedia.org)