> The internet allows the "unwashed masses" to voice their opinions and viewpoints too. And of course those higher up will always have a distaste for those opin

> The internet allows the "unwashed masses" to voice their opinions and viewpoints too. And of course those higher up will always have a distaste for those opinions. I think the real enabler isn't the internet, but the ubiquity of recording devices. Now that a significant slice of the population is carrying around near-professional-quality cameras at all times, we no longer "need" to trust established media sources. For many newsworthy events, someone will have uploaded phone footage to YouTube, or an indie publication will have covered it with a camera they dropped a grand on, and video proof is better than any journalistic credentials. Of course, that last part is rapidly ceasing to be true as we get better at doctoring video, heralding the end of this brief era of democratized journalism. Over the coming decades we as a society are going to have to re-learn what it means to have trustworthy media sources.