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.