Why journalists report the way they do

That the media act as if they were a kind of conspiracy attempting to keep the population "in a permanent state of self-righteous rage". I read this statement in a UK publication over a decade ago and, again, recently came across it during a discussion over the role of media in the modern age.

That the media are more powerful than ever is indisputable. This is the reason that the Press (now expanded to include all news media and not just newspapers) is often referred to as the Fourth Estate. The beginning of the year is a particularly befitting time to address the role of the media in the especially dynamic spaces that we currently inhabit.