At the upper levels, the more journalistic the broadcaster is,covering the who, what, when, where, how and sourcing things well,the more credibility they get.
One of the reasons why Rush is so intent on being right so often 98 or 99% of the time is that gives him more credibility when the drivebys come after him which they always do.
One of the reasons he is so effective is his huge numbers cover a great area. In addition the copy/cat effect of his show alone creates even bigger numbers with other broadcasters picking up on what he has done and using it as well on their shows,both radio tv and print, giving him far more import than the average broadcaster by far.
He has huge numbers sometimes in the 20-25 million arena,few if any newspapers and onoy hannity even come close to his numbers which is why they are so scared of him,he is and will continue to be a force to be reckoned with.
In essence he can have a much larger effect on the overall market for news.