Oh, I agree 100%.
To a large degree, though, we made this choice back in the 1987 when the Reagan FCC eliminated the "Fairness Doctrine." We decided that we would let market forces drive news coverage, and this is the result.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
The same market incentives that gave Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity huge national platforms enable-- some would say force-- media outlets to cover the Twitter-sphere today. When we deregulated news coverage, we decided that media organizations were not to attempt to behave as custodians of public interest, but to provide the type of information that is most in demand by their consumers. As this thread shows (2,000 plus posts) cultural outrage and the resultant backlash is what
democratic, popular media consumption demands.
So, it's easy to "tut-tut" the media and ignore that it is the public appetites for outrage and immediacy that forces them into the style of coverage.What are our alternatives? Change our consumption demands (some would say this is tantamount to changing human nature) or go back to regulating coverage with something like a modern "Fairness doctrine" (all the same regulatory objections that prevailed in 1987 are still present, though).
To quote an unpopular but quite true argument: "What the public is interested in is not always in the public interest."
See above. Media is reacting to market forces that demand immediacy, narrative, and outrage.
