Anniston Star Sticks Up for Dan Rather

Nonetheless, they make a good point about the "loud and rude exchanges and name-calling" that have come to typify the news on the various cable networks. However, I think they are missing the overall picture.

People who follow the news regularly are supplementing, if not supplanting, broadcast journalism, with news gleaned from the electronic media. Journalism has transformed from an industry dominated by media monopolies to one in which people can get reliable news from multiple sources.

Monopolistic enterprises like the Anniston "Red Star" can no longer ignore market forces and hope to survive. For good or bad, Dan Rather's downfall was one of the first major upheavals in the media revolution. Others will undoubtedly follow. It would suit the "old media" well to recognize this fact and move on, rather than to sit behind their mahogany desks whining about how it was so much easier to dupe the public in the old days.