Roger Kimball, who is as worth reading as Charles Krauthammer, has used the phrase "legacy media"; it is the most elegantly dismissive phrase since Kingsley Amis in The King's English called a word "a German noise."

A recent poll shows that the most trusted news source is Jon Stewart, the left-wing comic on Comedy Central. Although he will lampoon some precious left-wing fools, he's not even handed. He plays everything for a laugh while trying to freight in some liberal sensibilities. Here is a graphic from Time.

But think on this. The quondam major networks have less grasp on American trust than a comic. The least trusted is Katie Couric, who is believed by one seventh of the people who believe--a comic. The Tiffany network has been declining for many years; I recall Walter Cronkite saying, "And that's the way it is," when I was young and knowing that that was not the way it was. Even as a child I distrusted his oily pomposity. Then we had Dan Rather with his absurd booming of obviously forged documents about George W. Bush. And now Katie Couric, who in some states is watched by so few people that she doesn't even register as being watched.

She's the bottom of the barrel, but Charlie Gibson and Brian Williams don't get off so well either--America just isn't buying them. Or watching them.

Brian Williams interviewing President Obama

Isn't it time that we retire the trope "mainstream media"? Let's call it the legacy media. Which means that as soon as all our software and hardware are updated it will go away.

Perhaps I've sinned. I linked to Time, which is legacy media too. How odd to think that Henry Luce's most enduring legacy may be People, a glossy gossip rag.