I was kid in the 80s and my dad would listen to Rush Limbaugh. It was my intro to politics and I believe he was the one that popularized the term "mainstream media". It was his way of differentiating himself. I've noticed over the years, especially with those that have only lived in an Internet world that there is a huge gap in knowledge about the past. It often seems that if someone isn't in the first page of the search results it didn't happen.

I've never heard of the news acronym things before. That's interesting if true. What I've always heard is news was based on the root word new. As in new things. Today there is rarely anything on "news" that is new.

I don't like the term "mainstream media" anymore though. In a sense it used to mean something but today it really has little meaning. The label "Corporate Press" is one I like better. It better describes the incentives and includes things like Fox who don't really consider themselves mainstream.

To me as I talk to people I know or even just meet in public, I find that they do not share the values of the corporate press. I guess I'm saying calling the corporate press mainstream has become a kind of psyop. As if one that doesn't align with them is out of step.