CNN, NYT, MTV et al will continue to trend tabloid as the number of alternative sources of information grows, bleeding away their "serious" audiences.
While it is sad to see this crap get more concentrated over time, it's not really helpful to stress over it. Is the breadth and depth of content apart from television and outside the mainstream getting better? Probably yes.
Cable TV subscriber counts began declining in 2009.
The sad thing about the internet is that you can insulate yourself from any opinion that you might disagree with.
For an obvious political example, I know people who only read sites like The Drudge Report or Huffington Post. They self align with those viewpoints, and anyone who disagrees becomes the enemy.
It's a tribalist resurgence, and I don't see a solution to this - there are no even handed debates anymore.
Why is this? Marketing wants hits, so you get link bait headlines, and anything that will get hits even if it lacks merit gets pushed out the door for ad revenue.
I don't think that's entirely true. For me, the great thing about the internet is that some of these "tribes" are actually pretty diverse in their viewpoints.
They form loose communities based on currencies of quality (thoughtfulness, analysis, originality) instead of specific views. Specifically, I'm thinking of the bloggers/twitter users who write about political/econ topics. A lot of the good ones are non-commercial and ad-free and aren't looking for public acclaim.
While it is sad to see this crap get more concentrated over time, it's not really helpful to stress over it. Is the breadth and depth of content apart from television and outside the mainstream getting better? Probably yes.
Cable TV subscriber counts began declining in 2009.