The "fourth estate" is a profit-driven industry

The “fourth estate” is an appellation Americans give to the media for its role in shedding light on government and informing voters. Indeed, for all the damage the Supreme Court has done over the years to the plain words of the Constitution, it has largely held sacrosanct the freedom of the press. But we tend to forget that the press is a profit-driven industry, no different than the steel, pharmaceutical, or petroleum industries. As with all industries, the media has a profit incentive to deliver what its customers want, because the more eyes and ears it can attract, the more advertising it can sell and the more money it can make.

The media only has a profit incentive to deliver truth if the people want truth. And here something interesting and unfortunate happens, because people do want to hear the truth, but they also want to be entertained. This gives the media a profit incentive not to lie, but not to tell the whole truth either. The media’s incentive is to tell us the portion of the truth that is entertaining. And what we have demonstrated by our behavior is that bad news entertains us.