Pre internet, the general public were reliant on what was published in Newspaper, or on the radio, tv.

Typically the media could be used to form and shape public opinion and was used as a tool for propaganda.

Runner,

Wisdom is the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight - and part of this involves education and learning from others. After all you can't get the above from nowhere. Somebody needs to provide it. Read the link I put below, which came from the early media of Australia.

Wolly B,

Looking at early media in Australia, like newspapers for example - some stories read like poetry, are very descriptive (as they were so passionately written) - and you could tell by the writing and the scripture.

Visit: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/31750358

The media of today, does not come to this standard. I get stories telling me about after Christmas sales for example (because of huge advertising from department stores) in a newspaper.

The link highlights a story in and around where I live - and see the point of difference of today's media. If the general media, continues the way it does - people will not know much about "now" in the future. Poor media equals poor information and social media isn't always better in terms of accuracy or quality.

From what I can tell Charlie Hedbo is just a juvenile trash mag that sucks in its readership by ticking off as many people as it can.
That of course is no excuse for the appalling bloodbath that happened in Paris but it shouldn't be any surprise that if you purposely target a bunch of deranged psychopaths often enough something bad is eventually going to happen.
Should the management of Charlie Hedbo also be prosecuted for knowingly putting their innocent employees in danger?

If we look right back to as far as world war 1 we will see that the media had a huge part to play in inciting violence and war mongering and today is no different.
It is no accident that politicians and those that work in the media are two of the most despised people on the planet.