As the business models for serious journalism continue to erode where will we get the quality media we need as a society to make important decisions about our future?
I’ve been warning people: “Special interest groups will gladly pay for the media they want you to read, but you won’t pay for the media you need to read.”
Software engineers have a saying: GIGO, garbage in, garbage out.
If you start with garbage data you will get a garbage result. That’s the future we are heading towards, a future where our media is corrupted with information that serves the goals of special interest groups.
Take a look at Australia where multi-billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart has been trying to acquire Fairfax Media, publisher of top newspapers, in a bid to counter anti-mining forces. We’ll see more of that as newspapers and other traditional media continue to weaken.