Learning to Love the (Shallow, Divisive, Unreliable) New Media, James Fallows:
Fifteen years ago, I published a book, Breaking the News, which argued that a relentless focus on scandal, spectacle, and the “game” of politics was driving citizens away from public affairs, making it harder for even the least cynical politicians to do an effective job, and at the same time steadily eroding our public ability to assess what is happening and decide how to respond. And this was in an era that in retrospect seems innocent.
Not that we need any more evidence that the nature of journalism has changed. But that, really, is the crux and Journalism has changed. It’s now lower-case-j journalism for the most part, and to find Journalism that matters anymore, the responsibility is on us to seek it out.
That’s not to say that what Gawker does is inherently bad. I read Gawker properties all the time. But the organization is representative of how habits have changed seemingly over night.