Paul Starr:

News coverage is not all that newspapers have given us. They have lent the public a powerful means of leverage over the state, and this leverage is now at risk. If we take seriously the notion of newspapers as a fourth estate or a fourth branch of government, the end of the age of newspapers implies a change in our political system itself. Newspapers have helped to control corrupt tendencies in both government and business. If we are to avoid a new era of corruption, we are going to have to summon that power in other ways. Our new technologies do not retire our old responsibilities.

From 2004, Joe Nye:

In the era of the Founding Fathers, newspapers were extremely partisan, and George Washington was dismayed by the harshness of political language. For much of its early history -- to say nothing of the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction -- the country was as closely divided as it is today, and bitter campaign rhetoric reflected the closeness of the competition.

From a 2004 review of Paul Starr's book, The Creation of the Media:

The most important -- and interesting -- questions are structural.

Americans fundamentally misunderstand what is unusual about their communications media, and why.

From years ago, Richard Hofstadter:

Although Federalists and Anti-Federalists differed over many things, they do not seem to have differed over the proposition that an effective constitution is one that successfully counteracts the work of parties.

Goodbye to the Age of Newspapers