Re:It appears my Google account is slated for deletion
by ddingus on Wednesday September 13, 2017 @01:18PM
(#15240389)
It was a different balance. We, in effect, were in a forced trust position. Access to raw information was time consuming and expensive. If it could even be had.
Because of that, media was regulated differently. A more diverse body of media (pre-media for profit news and consolidation) as well as the fairness doctrine and a non-profit public service expectation were all strong norms and law in play.
Technical limits forced all of us, including the media, to take it more seriously.
Yes, we could trust them more than we could now, but also yes, we could not check so easily too.
Could we trust them or did we simply not have the means to fact check them and communicate the errors? Awful current affairs programs were around before the web and they were reporting some pretty dubious "facts" back then. Tabloids have been around for 100 years, maybe more.