Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a good story...but what happens if there is no one left to even lay the foundation let alone build it?

On this episode of our media series, the Fourth Estate we bring back our first guest to achieve “friend of the show status” and proud new recipient of the show’s first piece of swag, Mike Whitehouse.

Media and politics are intrinsically tied together, it could be argued that one cannot exist without the other. Politicians and governments count on public support and reaction to the moves they make as a barometer of how successful they are. There is no question that public trust in the media and governments have begun to dissolve as legacy media outlets begin to disappear and are replaced with other alternative sources. So where does that leave us the citizen consumer? What and who do we believe and is there anything that can be done to stop the foundation of our traditional media outlets from crumbling beneath the ground they stand on.

Mike brings a unique perspective to this series having worked for local media outlets and witnessing both it’s heyday and slow destruction before his move to politics.

Mike joins Richard, Rachel and Jeff to talk about the erosion of investigative journalism and the void left behind. A void that is quickly being filled by the rise of the low hanging fruit, “citizen journalism” and unregulated sources to the top of the barrel.