In stepping down as Prime Minister, Tony Blair characterized the media in a June 12th speech as a “feral beast” that “hunts in packs.” The Economist called the speech ironic, given that Blair was an expert at leveraging the media.
Still, The Economist says that “Mr. Blair has a point when he identifies this age of journalism as one of mass impact. Many newspapers and television producers have discovered that people have short attention spans and a hunger for scandal, gossip and disgust. They feed them accordingly, often ignominiously, by bugging telephones and badgering celebrities (or merely those unlucky enough to have dated them).
This mindset does not generally affect the B2B news or necessarily the business section, but marketers have to be aware that the rest of the paper or program may often take this approach.