Was That the Way It Was?

FROM THE 1930s into the 1980s, when public information in America moved through a decreasing number of pipelines—the era of growing newspaper concentration and three major broadcast networks—the field of media studies was dominated by the view that such media power as existed was benign. Journalism was conducted by professionals, who separated fact from opinion and news from entertainment. The power to certify what was worth knowing, and to depict it comprehensibly, nourished democracy, which needed, after all, a bedrock of agreement about what was happening in the world. Though the suppliers were concentrated, and the audiences were heavily dependent on a few channels, the existence of a plurality of “opinion leaders” was regarded as a guarantee that the media would fail to warp public opinion, even if they wanted to. This academic line of argument was pleasing to the ears of network moguls, who submitted to light-handed government regulation in exchange for infinitely renewable, costless broadcast licenses of publicly owned airways—licenses which, since they were never revoked, amounted implicitly to official permission to print money.