Oregon Media Insiders

...supportable position.

We used to have legislation in place to insure the public interest was somewhat protected. It came with problems, but it did set the social norm for people to be well informed.

That was things like the fairness doctrine.

Today there is no such norm. This too brings problems along for the ride.

We've traded entertainment value for being well informed. That's a different value judgement and that's where the harm comes from.

We've a ton of sources for news and information, but we don't have any incentive to consume those in any way other than our personal satisfaction. For most people that's entertainment, which means reaffirmation, not information. Readers here are quite likely to:

-be old enough for the old norms to still hold some value

-be the type of person who values being well informed

-are not totally ignorant.

Consider joe bag 'o dougnuts though. Is he really going to dig into the news, looking for trouble after a long and hard workday that sucks?