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More Information, Less Certainty

Self-service increasingly will characterize news consumption. Countless Internet-based sources of information now compete with traditional media such as newspapers, magazines and broadcast stations. Consumers have easy access to a massive supply of news, opinion, gossip and other information, including personal messages and images. Rather than relying on a newspaper or a TV station to stay informed, more people are creating personalized “news packages.”

This trend raises concerns about the reliability of publicly disseminated information. With so many sources, distinguishing the reliable ones from the rest is a challenge. Traditional media, which offer both news and ads, maintain “legacy” business models that are cracking under competitive pressure from websites that operate solely as ad media. In this way, the Internet has “decoupled” editorial content and advertising. Classified ad platform Craigslist and auction site eBay are just two Internet companies that attracted a large following without providing any information other than ads. As such online competitors have taken revenue from established media, employment has dropped in ...