As soon as I saw this headline, “CBS Said to Consider Use of CNN in Reporting,” I thought back to this comment:

“If the news is that important, it will find me.”

– A college student responding to a focus group question

I used that comment as the lead-in to a recent post – “The Medium is the Message.”

That innocent answer has stayed with me ever since. Perhaps we are evolving from a “Search for information” age to a “Pass it along to my network” era.

Yes, we still prize “the news that you can trust.” But our trusted sources have now changed. Walter Cronkite earned our trust anchoring the CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981. He had gravitas. He also had a captive audience. The current CBS Evening News anchor has – I’m not sure since I no longer watch the program – and has a dwindling audience. And little relevance for many.

• We no longer wait for the news to come on. We are too mobile for that.
• We can search for the news when we want it. Google has made this so simple to do.
• Or, we can rely on our trusted network to forward us the news that matters most to them – and to us.

There is so much to look for. So much to search through. So little time. So little trust.

Perhaps the CBS Evening News” is being replaced by the “My Social Network News.” News that you can trust.

If CBS and CNN team up to share resources devoted to reporting the news, what will they do with the savings? Satisfy their investors? Or devote more resources to making their content more important? So important that it finds me!

What do you think? Please add your comments below.