"NEWS"

According to smart people who say things, broadcast is on the verge of being niche-fucked into obscurity.

With broadband connections enabling "citizen journalists" to ejaculate stories into the universe at ridiculous speeds - currently, RSS feeds update at 299,792,459 meters per second, roughly 1 meter per second faster than the speed of light - what's considered newsworthy varies from person to person, depending on his particular brand of media cocktail.

The power to color the world, in other words, is now truly in the hands of the people.

Just by bookmarking certain sites and ignoring others, for example, I have the power to choose whether or not everything in my world - including the sun, moon, and stars - is a conspiracy, or whether or not everything in my world happens for a reason. (Don't get me wrong: 9 out of 10 times, the reason is because I act out of benevolence, and you act out of greed.)

My world is vastly different from [and superior to] yours, and your world is vastly different from [and inferior to] mine.

"So," you may ask yourself, "where do I fall in this equation?"

Well, just take a look at the political tones and journalist traditions shaping your life right now. Chances are you subscribe to one of the follow four world views:

The Huffington Enquirer

Democracy Nation

Gorilla vs. Fork

Or, of course, Mein Times

I look at these four categories and worry that the current media are dividing us on all fronts ... will the media grow so fragmented that news vendors eventually have to duke it out, via nuclear warfare, to gain substantial readership?

Will the Internet make us less worldly citizens than we were when the only thing worth doing on a computer was playing Ski Free?

Yes, and yes.