By Dylan R.N. Crabb

Media personalities have usually enjoyed an underdog aura around them – the perception of a small-time journalist fighting corruption – but that is changing with the ever-expanding digital news environment and particularly since the 2016 presidential election.  Large media outlets no longer receive the benefit of the doubt when they report news.  President Trump has put a lot of pressure on media organizations to show evidence with their reporting and prove the facts in what they say, which will be a net positive for journalists.  No one person’s word should be treated as gospel.

Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you’re on, you probably have your list of news stations that you go to and that you trust more than other sources and especially more than government officials, but what if your preferred sources of news aren’t actually very trustworthy at all?  If you found out that your favorite reporter/anchor/spokesman [insert a name here] lied on every broadcast he or she had ever participated in, where would you go to fill the void left by the absence of that formerly beloved media personality?

To whom should we go for the truth?  I think the answer is obvious – everywhere.

The plethora of consumer choices in media today has created more competition between channels (be it on television or on the world wide web) and traditional televised media does not command audiences as it once did, there is more fluidity in the industry now.  And, as ratings fall among traditional media, the desperate they are going to get for viewers.

“Media Malignancy” from Wizard of Cause.