What is news? When you picture it in your mind, what do you think of? Do you think of your friend who tells you about updates on Ukraine? Or a reputable news source that you tune into every Friday at 6PM? Do you think of a specific website that you visit? Or an Instagram page with thirty thousand followers? In this day and age, there are thousands of different ways to get information about what’s going on locally, statewide, nationally, and around the world, but it wasn’t always that easy. The internet has made current events more accessible—and less trustworthy—than ever before. Is that accessibility worth all of the deception that consumers have to sift through? After all, there weren’t always this many ways to follow the news.

The earliest records of news in America are exactly what you would expect: newspapers. During the 1700s, there were two dozen different types of newspaper companies across the thirteen colonies. Surprisingly, they weren’t that different from the newspapers that come out today. They were still filled with national current events, natural disaster information, and local headline stories. It’s also worth noting that these newspapers weren’t exactly widespread. The average cost of newspapers was 93 cents, or around thirty-five dollars today. This made them very expensive for the individual person, so newspapers were usually shared or read in store windows.

By the 1800s, the newspaper industry had grown tremendously. Instead of a couple dozen local newspapers, there were now a couple hundred, and that number would continue to grow as the century continued. By 1860, there were a whopping three thousand newspapers locally and nationally. This was mostly because paper production had increased, lowering the cost of newspaper production. 

For many ensuing decades, newspapers dominated. They were very cheap, very useful, and (perhaps most importantly), they had no other competition for news sources. Furthermore, the newspaper continued to develop by including content other than current events. In the early 20th century, photographs had become cheap enough to produce that they could be put in the front page story in black and white. This is also when people became recognizable enough to attract national fame; the term “celebrity” was popularized in the 1920s. However, despite these revolutionary changes, the newspaper was about to face its first competition after dominating current events for nearly two centuries.

While the radio was first invented in the 1890s, it became more popular in the 1920s. Aside from having an auditory advantage over newspapers, the radio gave Americans their first opportunity to experience news in real time. This meant that a user could listen to their favorite sports team live, instead of having to read the highlights in the paper the next day. While many thought that the radio would kill the newspaper completely, the newspaper and the radio lived comfortably alongside each other for a few reasons. For one, in the same way that the radio had an auditory advantage, the newspaper had a visual advantage. Many people only wanted to buy a newspaper to skim through the headlines before reading the comic of the day or solving the crossword puzzle. The newspaper was also more forgiving for readers who didn’t have the time to look through every important detail of every important event. While listening to the radio forced people to listen to most of the broadcast to understand anything, the newspaper was easy to skim through for people who only wanted to read the headlines.

Unfortunately, the radio and the newspaper could only coexist for two short decades before a familiar opponent challenged their reigns: the television. First popularized in the late 1940s, the television revolutionized the way people learned about national news. It succeeded for all the reasons the radio had, while adding a visual component to help viewers better understand what was going on. Again, the general public felt as if it would only take a few years before the television dominated current events. However, its competition exposed one fatal flaw: portability. While the newspaper and the radio were able to be listened to anywhere, the television was only able to be watched at home. This made it very inconvenient for working class citizens, who only had time for current events on the train ride to and from work. 

That brings us to the popular news source of today: the internet. The internet does not have the same problems as the radio and the television, which were useful yet flawed inventions. It’s on nearly every device, including portable ones. The internet makes it easy for people to skim through headlines, yet also includes a vast database of information. It can be watched, listened to, or both at the same time. The only thing the other news sources have against the internet is that the internet can be extremely biased. However, the general public doesn’t seem to care. 

According to a study on media bias done by the Knight Foundation, a whopping fifty-seven percent of Americans believe that the media they consume on a daily basis is biased, yet they continue to consume it. Simply put, people don’t care if the information they’re getting is biased, as long as it’s accessible. The internet also includes many of the key features of other news sources, including an infinite amount of comic strips and word searches, and podcasts that function similarly to a radio. The only newspapers that sell well today are the ones with hot celebrity gossip, and many of the people who use the radio are those who have been used to it all their life.

So, while the internet is taking over, the radio, television, and newspaper companies need to find a solution. In recent years, they have adapted by posting their newspapers online and uploading televised broadcasts and audio recordings to streaming services. While misinformation is always an issue, the more newspaper companies and radio and TV stations put their reputable information on the internet, the less misinformation will be spread. The American system of government works best when its votes are coming from an educated populace, since understanding social and economic issues is imperative to voting for the right candidate who can fix them. Thanks to the internet, these issues are more understood than ever before.