Perhaps the role of mainstream journalists now is not so much to break news as it is to buttress it. Where in the past, the mantra used to be that “the public has a right to know”, non-professional journalists are now answering the demand for the public to know first, whereas professional journalists (in theory – editorial pressures aside) continue to exist because the public has a right to know more.

As regards competition for attention, people read newspapers because they are actively seeking news. News they obtain online may be expressly sought or incidentally stumbled upon. So I’d hazard a guess these news media answer slightly different needs and offer slightly different types of gratification. In which case it may not be so much a case of jostling for a slice of the news attention pie as it is fighting to enlarge the pie, if there is sufficient newsworthy information.