Going to a media site, newspaper, television etc. and looking for information gets more profit driven every day. Media sites charge to access archives and look up our collective modern history. As gatekeepers this opens up huge opportunities for abuse and revisionism. Certainly media are biased. This is inevitable. But restricting access to past information to only those with ability to pay for it reinforces the status quo and limits opportunities for those without means.
Institutions such as libraries and schools can purchase subscriptions to these databases and afford access to everyone. But this depends on available infrastructure and funds to pay for that access.
What bothers me the most about the media, particularly newspapers offering only a paid archive service is that print editions, with ads and subscriptions, have already provided the material and paid the funding for its production. Transformation of it into digital form does cost money but it is a one time cost. Current news websites are running and maintaining archives is merely an adjunct to that. Many older archives have been put onto microfilm that is freely searchable in public libraries-this takes some time but has always been free.
The point is, history is being recorded by modern media. The powerful mass media have a responsibility to maintain that history and make it available to all. Media does not own history though the media giants act as though they do. History is not a commodity.
