Argues that the “news of the day” was not possible until the invention and mass use of the telegraph. As the culture increasingly embraced new electronic media, first radio and then television, the legitimacy of such information began to decline (p. 8). It's not that Postman is against mediums like television, so to speak. What he calls “junk programs,” entertainment as an end in itself, has value as entertainment. However, it is when serious topics, news, politics and religion become vehicles for entertainment; there Postman sees a fundamental decline of culture (p.