The term Fourth Estate refers to the press, both in its explicit capacity of advocacy and in its implicit ability to frame political issues. The term goes back at least to Thomas Carlyle in the first half of the 19th century.
It seems as of late the press has become more advertorial (advertising disguised as actual news stories) then informational. Some examples on a national level are the selling of the Iraq War and on a local level the endless coverage of Sanford Health by print and TV media.
There are some basic reasons why this has happened; media has become huge conglomerates that no longer care about getting the story, just the advertising dollars. They choose more often then not to ignore certain news items fearing they will lose advertisers.
Just look at all the Women’s magazines in Sioux Falls? Do any of them have content that is news worthy? Do any of them cover politics?
I think the Fourth Estate still exists, loosely. Blogs have become the new Fourth Estate.
Is everything true that we read on the blogs? No. But neither is our mainstream media either. The advantage the internets has over TV or print media is you can sort out the info on your own. Blogs are edgier then other media sources too, they don’t sugarcoat the news. Many great stories have broken on blogs (Monica Lewinsky scandal for instance, and the the Moveon.org Petraseus ad comes to mind).
There is a part of me that wishes I was still a part of the print media, but I will admit I have met some interesting people through my blog and have heard some pretty good stories to (stuff you will never see in our local media).
Eventually the OLD Fourth Estate will no longer be able to ignore the NEW Fourth Estate. I’m hoping the 2008 election cycle proves this.