Why the Mainstream Media Is Dying

If you depend on a single news source for your information on world affairs, you are already at a severe disadvantage. If you avoid news from certain outlets because they are (or you have been told) they are: racist, sexist, xenophobic, etc. you are at a severe disadvantage and I'll say severely mis-informed (if not ill-informed). The [non] coverage of events such as those in Ferguson and UVA should be evidence to any thinking person that much mainstream media is doing what some have dubbed "mega-phoning". That is they are invested in certain narratives and do their best to present that narrative, facts be damned. Those who fail to adhere to the narrative(s) are labelled all kinds of things (racist, sexist, etc.) in a crass but effective effort to distract the reader from glaring biases that compromise the reporting.

Indeed this is what Gamergate is really about (and is another example of mega-phoning). The corruption of actual reporting for the sake of keeping in the good graces of certain organizations and bodies. Today we have yet more proof:

The coverage of HSBC in Britain's Telegraph is a fraud on its readers. If major newspapers allow corporations to influence their content for fear of losing advertising revenue, democracy itself is in peril,” the letter reads.

He said the pressure put on the paper to maintain advertising from HSBC was a “sinister development,” which blurred the traditional boundary between advertising and editorial sectors, with HSBC described as the "advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend.”

He said the embargo on publishing articles criticizing HSBC had begun in 2013, after the bank suspended its advertising contract with the Telegraph following investigations into its offshore accounts in Jersey.

It took the paper a year to regain the advertising contract, Oborne recalls, but the pressure on the editorial sector became intolerable and he resigned in December. He says he fully intended to “leave quietly,” but after the paper’s “microscopic” coverage of the HSBC tax scandal, he felt a duty to speak out.

In Rotherdam, the authorities looked the other way while girls were being raped because essentially they didn't want to offend a group of people. It should never be the case that telling the truth is either offensive, cause for firing or public humiliation.

Indeed, unless there is a turnabout it is more and more likely that non-mainstream media is where actual fact based investigative journalism will be seen while mainstream press like the NYT becomes a place where people go for entertainment where the material is not taken very seriously.