The press is one of the many aspects of contemporary human life that was severely damaged by the internet. The current emphasis is on internet news, and it’s subjected to less scrutiny now. Because news gets out so fast thanks to the web, wire services are almost meaningless and the result is a general hastiness and sensationalism and commercialism of internet news sites, even the “legit” ones, the whole culture of internet short sightedness and haste and short attention span has weakened news gathering. There was this woman who claimed to have saved a bunch of young Afghan women from the Taliban, and she was touting her great accomplishment on Today.com and New York Post.com and CNN and Wall Street Journal.com and tv cable news. And they didn’t check her out. It turned out she made up 99% of it. So now they’re all, uh, That story about that woman was not true,s orry…because no one did due journalistic diligence…They’re also obviously selling puff pieces about products, sometimes in special sections with euphemistic titles meaning someone paid them to write an article or “review” but sometimes not, sometimes it’s right there in the news stream, as in a recent Washington Post puff piece endorsing, and linking to, a company selling fruity soda-pop like alcoholic drinks to college age kids…