> but in almost all cases there remains a creator that the mass population is now "capable" of finding.

I don't think that is true with local news.

At our city council meetings, you see two news outlets:

* The local paper had a reporter who would sit through the whole damn thing.

* The local TV news, who would show up, get some clips of the meeting, a few sound bites with different people, and then pack up and leave in order to get the segment produced for the 10 o'clock news.

Now, the paper is going through bankruptcy and the person doing the city council beat has left.

I'm not sure anyone will sit through the whole meeting to cover it all.