The Fourth Estate Sale

We all remember the three branches of government from civics class: Executive, Legislative, Judicial. The press, or media as they're known today, have long been referred to as the Fourth Estate.

Collectively, the Fourth Estate are not doing well.

Anyone familiar with print, broadcast, or internet news knows that it's advertising revenue that makes reporting possible. The proliferation of communication media and the global economic slump have combined to divide a smaller pie of advertising dollars into more pieces. Major U.S. daily newspapers, some a century old, are shutting down operations. Magazines are going out of business. Broadcast television and radio outlets are cutting staff. Internet advertisers report disappointing returns on their investments.

Some of this, perhaps, is the normal ebb-and-flow of cyclical markets.

What concerns me, however, is that as news gathering institutions scramble to find a delivery model that allows them to survive, we have dwindling reporting capacity and a rapidly growing government monolith. Without the scrutiny of an active press/media, how are the people to keep the government in check? It's like going into the African veldt with a .500 Nitro Express or .375 H&H, only to find it's become a .22 when the Cape Buffalo start charging.

It's definitely a time for each of us to be vigilant in monitoring government and in disseminating news to one another, as there are fewer who can do it for us.