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“After the war, PR becomes a very big deal,” Schudson said. “It was partly stimulated by the war and the idea of journalists and others being employed by the government as propagandists.” Many who worked for the massive wartime propaganda apparatus found an easy transition into civilian life.

People “became more conscious that they were not getting direct access, that it was being screened for them by somebody else,” Schudson said. But there was no turning back. PR had become a fixture of public life. Concern about the invisible filter of public relations became a steady drumbeat in the press

When public relations began its ascent in the early twentieth century, journalism was rising alongside it. The period saw the ferocious work of the muckrakers, the development of the great newspaper chains, and the dawn of radio and, later, television. Journalism of the day was not perfect; sometimes it was not even good. But it was an era of expansion that eventually led to the powerful press of the mid to late century.

Now, during a second rise of public relations, we are in an era of massive contraction in traditional journalism. Bureaus have closed, thousands of reporters have been laid off, once-great newspapers like the Rocky Mountain News have died. The Pew Center took a look at the impact of these changes last year in a study of the Baltimore news market. The report, “How News Happens,” found that while new online outlets had increased the demand for news, the number of original stories spread out among those outlets had declined. In one example, Pew found that area newspapers wrote one-third the number of stories about state budget cuts as they did the last time the state made similar cuts in 1991. In 2009, Pew said, The Baltimore Sun produced 32 percent fewer stories than it did in 1999.

even original reporting often bore the fingerprints of government and private public relations. Mark Jurkowitz, associate director the Pew Center, said the Baltimore report concentrated on six major story lines: state budget cuts, shootings of police officers, the University of Maryland’s efforts to develop a vaccine, the auction of the Senator Theater, the installation of listening devices on public busses, and developments in juvenile justice. It found that 63 percent of the news about those subjects was generated by the government, 23 percent came from interest groups or public relations, and 14 percent started with reporters.

The Internet makes it easy for public relations people to reach out directly to the audience and bypass the press, via websites and blogs, social media and videos on YouTube, and targeted e-mail.

Some experts have argued that in the digital age, new forms of reporting will eventually fill the void left by traditional newsrooms. But few would argue that such a point has arrived, or is close to arriving. “There is the overwhelming sense that the void that is created by the collapse of traditional journalism is not being filled by new media, but by public relations,” said John Nichols, a Nation correspondent and McChesney’s co-author. Nichols said reporters usually make some calls and check facts. But the ability of government or private public relations to generate stories grows as reporters have less time to seek out stories on their own. That gives outside groups more power to set the agenda.

many involved in “open data” saw their interests and activities being confined to making data ‘legally” and “technically” accessible — what happened to it after that was somebody else’s responsibility.

while the Digital Divide deals with, for the most part “infrastructure” issues, the Data Divide is concerned with “content” issues.

where a Digital Divide might exist for example, as a result of geographical or policy considerations and thus have uniform effects on all those on the wrong side of the “divide” whatever their socio-demographic situation; a Data Divide and particularly one of the most significant current components of the Open Data movement i.e. OGD, would have particularly damaging negative effects and result in particularly significant lost opportunities for the most vulnerable groups and individuals in society and globally. (I’ve discussed some examples here at length in a previous blogpost.)

1. infrastructure—being on the wrong side of the “Digital Divide” and thus not having access to the basic infrastructure supporting the availability of OGD. 2. devices—OGD that is not universally accessible and device independent (that only runs on I-Phones for example) 3. software—“accessible” OGD that requires specialized technical software/training to become “usable” 4. content—OGD not designed for use by those with handicaps, non-English speakers, those with low levels of functional literacy for example 5.  interpretation/sense-making—OGD that is only accessible for use through a technical intermediary and/or is useful only if “interpreted” by a professional intermediary 6. advocacy—whether the OGD is in a form and context that is supportive for use in advocacy (or other purposes) on behalf of marginalized and other groups and individuals 7. governance—whether the OGD process includes representation from the broad public in its overall policy development and governance (not just lawyers, techies and public servants).

computer-grading of essays is a surging science, with some studies showing that computer evaluations are fairer, more consistent, and more informative than those of an average teacher, if not necessarily of an outstanding one.

the relative prices of grains, metals, and many other basic goods tended to revert to a central mean tendency over sufficiently long periods. We conjectured that even though random discoveries, weather events, and technologies might dramatically shift relative values for certain periods, the resulting price differentials would create incentives for innovators to concentrate more attention on goods whose prices had risen dramatically.

people are not goods, but the same principles apply. As skilled labor becomes increasingly expensive relative to unskilled labor, firms and businesses have a greater incentive to find ways to “cheat” by using substitutes for high-price inputs. The shift might take many decades, but it also might come much faster as artificial intelligence fuels the next wave of innovation.

Many commentators seem to believe that the growing gap between rich and poor is an inevitable byproduct of increasing globalization and technology. In their view, governments will need to intervene radically in markets to restore social balance. I disagree. Yes, we need genuinely progressive tax systems, respect for workers’ rights, and generous aid policies on the part of rich countries. But the past is not necessarily prologue: given the remarkable flexibility of market forces, it would be foolish, if not dangerous, to infer rising inequality in relative incomes in the coming decades by extrapolating from recent trends.