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Comment by polygamous_bat | Hacker News Reader

When I think about falling trust in so called “mainstream” media, pieces like these come to mind. Used to be that newspapers were the fourth estate, existing independently and keeping powers in check by being a source of transparency. Now in the age of web driven advertisement that business model doesn’t work anymore, and what we get is the shells of the old behemoths used as corporate mouthpieces and the crumbling democracy and freedom that entails. What an absolute shame.

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The period during which the majority of mainstream news was a venerable “fourth estate” must have been for an exceedingly brief period of time. Generally the news has always been owned / controlled by wealthy and powerful interests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

What's changed is public consumption/access to news about local issues.

Pretty much every local newspaper has been bought up and now almost exclusively talks about ads... err.. I mean national issues. And it isn't even articles that these papers write, rather just the same article published by someone like The McClatchy Company.

Same thing happened to broadcast news.

Ah to return to the days of William Randolph Hearst, when journalism was free of corporate influence

You’ve pointed out one instance of this occurring in the past. This doesn’t dispel the essence of the point you are responding to. You need to show that it was widespread and occurred in most media outlets.

When was mainstream media not advertising driven? When was media not beholden to corporate interests?

Cable has always been ad-funded as far as I can tell.

Big print newspapers were mostly independent and subscriber-funded, so they answered to their subs rather than advertisers.

The Economist is still independent and subscriber-funded. But, most sub-driven publications now have to fight tooth and nail to stay above water, so the writing needs to be tailored towards engagement/clicks :/

At the local level newspapers weren’t beholden to business interests to the extent they are now since there were much fewer ways to advertise to potential customers. At the national level there was sufficient competition in media ownership to allow for real investigative reporting. Now that media has consolidated they don’t have to try as hard to attract viewers/readers. Also consolidation in the corporate world means exposing wrongdoing in one brand means pissing off that brand’s owner who also owns many other brands. In the past exposing shenanigans in a cereal brand didn’t mean that you lost out on advertising from a whole slew non related food brands.

There was also more a desire to serve public interests prior to Reagan getting rid of the rules on media consolidation. It wasn’t perfect but it was much better than what we have now. News media is much more beholden to corporate interests now than in the past.

> Used to be that newspapers were the fourth estate

This has never (really) been the case with "mainstream" media. "The media" in common parlance is a farce. Historical news has almost always been agenda driven, and was key to the American revolution, Labor reforms in the US, etc. Those things are not "mainstream media."

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