Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

Mark Evans contends that the mainstream media isn't in danger of disappearing anytime soon because it is convenient:

Sure, newspaper circulation has arguably been falling for the past 30 years but millions of papers are still being sold every day in Canada and the U.S. Why? Well, you can't really lie on the couch to read an online newspaper or take the sports section into the bathroom for a private moment. As important, newspapers are designed to encourage discovery because you can quickly browse through several sections and read the news items that capture your attention - something difficult to do online even if you are a big Google News fan. From a technology perspective, reading online is apparently about 20% slower than paper, which explains why so many people print stories they really want to read.

Surely there must be more reasons for its existence than just convenience. That would suggest that newpapers will pretty much cease to exist the moment someone perfects e-ink or digital paper. Or the moment people start taking their ultra-mobile PCs to the bathroom with them, if they aren't already.

I don't think that people are referring to the form factor of the paper when they talk about the death of mainstream media. I think they are referring to the system whereby a small group of editors control what the readers see, and the message and tone of the information conveyed. The MSM conveys a particular message, ostensibly reflecting the sentiment of the average reader, though rarely is that the case. The goal of the MSM is to convey that message, repeat that message, allow a limited discussion about the message, and then either continue the message or move on to a new message, on a schedule determined by them.

But today there are ways for the average person to get their message out, to discuss somebody else's message or vociferously disagree with it, or just to say whatever they feel. In addition to the one-to-many relationship or the MSM, people can now have peer-discussions, many-to-many relationships, or just aggregate the thoughts of others on a particular subject of interest.

Where we once assumed the mainstream media to be "the truth", we now know it to be one potential truth, or it may not even be true at all. The ability of others to openly discuss this information hold the potential to get to the complete truth if it exists. But we no longer depend on the MSM to be the sole source of the truth. They have lost our unquestioning trust.

The death of the mainstream media is really hastened by the fact that we increasingly turn to other sources to validate what we see in the mainstream media. The danger for them is that when we look to enough other sources we won't need them anymore.