Lets take it a step further and look at games journalism as an indicator for the future of main stream journalism.
Already the face of it has massively changed. Any kind of ethical investigative reporting is long gone. Replaced with a more blogish style and everything reduced to clickbait, soundbites and opinion pieces where idiot pundits yell at each other. The daily show, a comedy program, is almost considered a leader in fair and balanced news.
Pursuit of the quick dollar from titillation and pushing an agenda has gutted the mainstream just as much as it has the gaming press.
Something I learned about lies when I was a child: You simply can't lie to people forever. Eventually the truth comes out. People are redpilling. I stopped watching years ago, but I'm sure mainstream media is calling Snowden a traitor left and right, yet every single person I've ever talked to calls him a hero.
This weekend people I'd never met were talking about "American Sniper" literally every single one of them knew the guy the movie was about is actually an asshole who brags about his kills, and knew the movie was just a propaganda piece. How? It's because the internet allows this information to get out in a way that just wasn't possible 20 years ago. Sites like reddit are a huge stumbling block for propagandists.
They can't control the information enough to keep people in the dark anymore.
Gamergate is a small example. The gaming press is nearly 100% on board with it's narrative that gamergate is some crazy plot to harass women, yet KIA has 5x the subs of Ghazi. Sure there are thousands who are too blind to see professional victims for what they are, but many thousands more have looked at the evidence and see that gamergate is about ethics always has been, always will be and no amount of lies can ever totally erase that. As time passes the lies become more obvious. How long before Zoe Quinn is forced to change her name again because everyone has heard her complain about harassment with one breath and beg for money with the next time and time and time again?
Old media will die a cruel death. Clawing, grasping and hatefully spitting in your face. The world will be better when it's gone.
Gaming has Totalbiscuit, like it or not -- know it or not, he is the future. Fuck he is the present.
MSM has a higher barrier to entry. There is no TB equivalent who has access to POTUS press conferences or the ability to send reporters around the world. Vice is the closest thing we have. Everything I know about the happenings in Syria and Ukraine come from Vice and reddit. I know I cant really trust them, but CNN and whatever else is laughable shit especially in comparison.
Journalism as it was is over. Gaming and otherwise. It is not yet dead, that will take a while longer, but when it dies I will piss on it's grave.
The mainstream moves slower than games. But they will follow the same path.
It will be replaced by something better I hope. Something worse I fear.
All the same we live in interesting times.
Bain, Snowden, Assange, Gaters and all the others who dare to stand and weather the storm are e-revolutionaries, the true fucking heros of our generation.