Thirty years ago, Portnoy may have naively trusted the reporter. Yet things have changed. Conservatives have altered the media culture. With books, websites, publishing houses, podcast hosts, and a strong X, formerly known as Twitter, presence, the Right has educated the public on the many reasons not to trust the media. Portnoy is an example of this.

It’s a major sea change and one that conservatives should be proud of. It’s easy to forget just how bad things once were. Before the internet, we were stuck with three network channels and liberal newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times. If they lied about you, a million people saw it, and there was very little you could do about it. You could write a letter to the editor, which no one would see.

Things are different now. People know the media are crooked, and their victims can not only survive but get the truth out.

[The opening of the blogosphere made this possible by slashing the cost of publication to near zero. That allowed for competition and scrutiny that had heretofore been impossible with media outlets having an iron grip on publication. The question, though, is whether this has changed behaviors in the media. It hasn’t so far except on the margins, as Mark suggests in the rest of his piece. Read it all, and then consider how much work is still left to do. — Ed]