Hugh Hewitt shares a study result, "For the first time, social media has displaced television as the top way Americans get news."

A truncated portion of Hewitt's tweet reads as follows.

“For the first time, social media has displaced television as the top way Americans get news. ‘The proportion accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54%) is sharply up,’ the Reuters Digital News Report’s authors write, “overtaking both TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) for the first time.” (Source: http://niemanlab.org, reutersinstitute. http://politics.ox.ac.uk)”

Few trends are irreversible, but this one is likely to be, and it spells doom for a lot more jobs in legacy media, where they haven’t exactly been flourishing for a while.

Eventually a cable platform will (1) accept the reality, (2) program news for the 54+ demo and (3) print money since the Boomers have the dough anyway.

Two things ring true about this, no, three do. One, "legacy media" has failed its consumer base. Two, Americans continue to evolve with respect to news consumption. Three, social media and its proxies remain convenient and easily available sources of information.

The paramount importance of press accuracy cannot be understated, nor can the destructive power of press bias. A news report attests to a certain set of facts, informing about them and marking a historical record of them. While opinion makers can appropriately insert bias into commentary and editorializing, the leaven of bias should not be found in news reporting. Problems arise when the press seeks to find an outcome and dig up some facts that seem to support it, rather than finding facts and making right judgments about what outcome they support. Reputational damage has been incurred by some mainstream media platforms due to the perception of substandard media practices. That damage does not heal overnight.

Meanwhile, media consumers seem to be increasingly finding social media and its proxies to be the modes of choice for news, information, and education. One reason for this could be the convenience and ease of availability they offer.

One of the riches of the United States is a free press. It does not come without its headaches. Just as constructive speech swallows destructive speech, an accurate press renders impotent purveyors of inaccuracy and falsehood. A free press is an advantage not shared by information-controlling regimes. It is an advantage because in allowing the whole truth, as unpleasant as it sometimes may be, little darkness remains for inaccuracy and falsehood.