More and more people are choosing social filters for their news rather than professional filters. We're tuning out television news, we're tuning out newspapers. And we still hear about the important stuff, it's just that it's not like this drumbeat of bad news. It's news that matters. I figure by the time something gets to me it's been vetted by those I trust. So the stupid stuff that doesn't matter is not going to get to me.
Norm Geras pokes fun at Anderson. So does Ad Age's Ken Wheaton, adding:
When you start relying on your own circle of friends or colleagues to filter all your news, you end up with a very myopic sense of the world. You might think that everyone is on Twitter, for example. You might believe that Facebook won the election for Obama. In short, you become the same sort of person who only listens to right-wing talk radio or the sort who only reads left-leaning blogs.
I think that misses Chris's point - which is that the new media has ended the authority of media institutions. People have learned to see the little men and women behind the curtain and would rather trust the people they know - or come to know online - who have always been in front of the curtain and honest about what their biases are.