Soundbite: The Media Has Accomplished Aught This Decade

“Having lived through the Awful Aughts — which began with news organizations vowing to get serious after 9/11 and ended with Jon and Kate, Octomom and Balloon Boy — do you feel better served by the news establishment? The easy answer, of course, is YOU MUST BE KIDDING.”

— Howie Kurtz looks back on a decade in media in today’s Washington Post.

If the media were a politician who had to answer the question every incumbent party dreads “are you better off now than you were eight years ago?” they would be in for a sweeping defeat. And in fact, the media, or the media as we knew it at the beginning of this decade has suffered a sweeping defeat — will we even have newspapers in ten years? Doubtful.

Of course, as in politics, there is the argument to be made that you get the media (or the politician) you deserve, so should we be doing better? Perhaps in the form of an online payment? We may not have a choice. The Times is reporting that as soon as the next few weeks some news organizations will be taking “the plunge.” Meaning among other things that the era of free content may be a thing of the Aughts.

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