The telegraph was a disruptive technology.I mean that in the sense that it took a cultural shift to get used to the possibility of essentially instantaneous transcontinental communication. The two big “killer apps” of the telegraph were:
I have discussed the effect of the wire services, and will do so further. But to fathom the change in mindset that instantaneous communication beyond the line of sight made, consider the origin of the use of telegraph in command and control of the railroads. It seems that a VP of a railroad line was traveling, and - as often happened - his train came to a stretch of single-track line. His train waited on the siding for sight of the train slated to use that stretch of track next - coming in the opposite direction of his train. Train accidents happened all the time, and they especially happened when an engineer failed to wait for an opposite-direction train to pass before getting on a single track stretch of railroad.
- Wire news services, and
- Command and control of the railroads.
So, our VIP sat around cooling his heels while the engineer, following mandatory protocol, waited for the oncoming train to pass. And he waited. And he waited. And he waited.
Finally, he had enough - and finally he used the telegraph (telegraph lines always used RR right of way to string their wires) to ask the stationmaster what the story was. He was told that the train in question was being repaired. He replied that his train would be using that line of track, and that the oncoming train was on no account to proceed until his train cleared it. Then he directed the engineer of his train to proceed. The engineer flatly refused. If you valued your life, you simply did not do that. And the engineer could not be persuaded by the VP of his company to proceed. The VP finally said, OK. You get in the caboose where you’ll be safe, and I’ll run the train into the next station. And that was the origin of command and control of trains via telegraph.
The story illustrates the cultural shift involved in telegraph communication. It was spooky to be able to do that. We are culturally different from that engineer; we think nothing at all of communicating worldwide without even a wire. The point is that we constantly receive messages over vast distances - from people that we don’t even know, any more than you know me (but, internet joke to the contrary notwithstanding, I’m pretty sure I know you are not a dog).
The trouble is that the journalists have exploited that cultural shift by claiming a form of omniscience (“journalistic objectivity”) and, because it was in the interest of every journalist on every wire service, have successfully conducted a massive propaganda campaign persuading the public to buy it. People are so hooked on knowing “what is going on” that they will believe just about anything from a journalist. And journalists, for their part at least historically, have restricted their deceit primarily to half-truths rather than outright lies. With the internet, that system seems to be breaking down.
"The telegraph was a disruptive technology. "
Disruption leads to less skepticism, not more ?
"I have discussed the effect of the wire services, and will do so further."
You have discussed the fact that wire services made the same information available to large or small newspapers. You haven't made the case that the telegraph making the same information available to all competitors decreased the amount of skepticism with which the average person viewed government and/or large businesses.
Until the 1960s concentration of economic power had always led to individuals becoming more skeptical of both businesses and government the larger each got.
The image based era television ushered in relied on government controlled airwaves neither individuals or small business could access without paying a company afilliated with owner of one of the limited number of available licenses that granted access to the airwaves.
Shortly thereafter the sheep ceased to even bleat when the sheepdogs were openly taking bribes from the wolves. An obvious reduction in the amount of skepticism.
have a nice day