Exactly, the distinction is the good 'ol days, when there were only 3 news channels so there was no way to cover all the specific cases of non-meritocracy going on, and today, where there are many ways to communicate the long tail of all these cases.
You can say this about many, many companies.
> Sadly this won't be the wake up call that we need to bring back some sort of meritocracy
What date range are you pointing to here for these good-ole'-days, when meritocracy was real and class, race and connections didn't matter?