BIG NEWS ERA IS OVER

The television news era is over. It is not coming back. It worked when there were only three stations. In order to attract both sides of the country, you had to be vanilla and bland. They had to stay middle of the road and never get too controversial or they would lose viewers. And because the public had no other source of information, they became a vanilla bland educated public. Cable and the internet have changed all of that. Now, people can get the information from a thousand different sources, up to the minute, in as much detail as they can stomach. They form their own opinions, then flock to shows that reinforce those opinions. All important debates are now decided by courtroom tactics -- the advocates argue it out and then the jury decides. It remains to be seen if this is the better way. As a trial lawyer, I can tell you that juries often get it wrong.