The primary product of the news media was historically a daily habit, hegemonic across the middle class, to consume a thing wrapped in ads.
That’s slightly different than other media because the “hegemonic” bit is really important and the town newspaper / networks monopolized it.
It never mattered what the underlying artifact in the habit was. That was simply a historical accident.
Antagonism between media and tech is not about distributing news. Distributing news is not and never was valuable. The habit is the prize.
Steve Jobs created a much stickier, more engaging, easier-to-wrap-ads-around habit and popularized it worldwide.
Every compliant since then has been “Dang it the geeks have encroached on our monopoly of being the only ad provider everyone has to use.”
