Warren Buffett is lamenting the state of newspapers. His deputy, Charles Munger, even called it a "national tragedy." But is it?
Let's look at a brief history ...
Newspapers started in the US in 1608, with John Smith's Newes From Virginia, and did not reach their height until the New York Sun, the first penny, or people's, paper, was published in 1833 (before this, newspapers were too expensive for many people to buy). Throughout this time, objectivity was not considered necessary to journalism. Different newspapers had different viewpoints, said what those viewpoints were, and used the news and facts to argue them, advocacy journalism. Objectivity was not considered to be an important trait in journalism until the twentieth century, when more centralized media forms like television and radio emerged. Forced to compete with this, large, centralized newspapers began to emerge, as small, opinion based papers died out. Before this, in the US, 2,600 dailies and 14,000 weeklies were published. As prices and competition increased, this number began to decline, and so did the influence of the newspaper.
So, at the height of newspaper popularity, newspapers presented opinions, using facts as a basis, and they were cheap to publish and accessible to the majority of the population.
Does this sound like blogs to anyone?
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