Since the beginning of time, our societies have distributed information by a central point.  Today we call that central point, “The Media”.  You know these by very popular names, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, etc.  While they use new technologies to distribute their news, the news gathering process itself is still very ancient and because of this, the news has drifted away from actual news reporting to opinion reporting — namely, their opinions.

With the dawn of Facebook and Twitter, the way we get and read news has fundamentally changed.  Today I see myself getting my weather reports from Google+ or Facebook and see so much news during the day from Twitter that I don’t even feel the need to watch it on television or buy a paper.

Social media puts its users in control of the news.  If I don’t want to know about the latest stocks or the latest games, I will hardly ever see it unless there was so much of a buzz that it causes nearly everyone to talk about it.  User choice has become the driving factor behind the popularity of social media so much that traditional media is starting to feel a real crunch in their financials.

Over the past five years, news outlet stocks have taken nose dives while sites like Twitter and Facebook have set new stock market records.  If that’s not enough to convince big network executives they’re doing something wrong, then they should look at the popularity of these new social media networks in comparison with their own.

The more we progress to a society with 100% internet access, the more the traditional media fossil will erode eventually leaving our society with no use for it in the least.  But they know this, which is why they have backdoored their users by billing themselves as news but now selling us opinions instead.  A typical news broadcast these days consists of about 20% fact.

Traditionally a news broadcast would contain reporting of factual events that had taken place that day or week.  Today, only 20% of a network’s airtime is dedicated to this reporting, the rest covers their opinions of Government and politics. This change was not well received as it was accompanied by another sharp decline in stock.

So today, news outlets have taken to trying to embrace social media, using them to convey their messages, but in reality, they are just using another technology to report their news when the reporting method itself should be what they upgrade.