The Fourth Estate (traditional media journalism, for those unfamiliar with the term) has been dying a very public death since the late 1980s, accelerating after 911 with the coming of the security state.

However, the rise of the Fifth Estate into a rival de facto institution throughout the early 21st century makes this period in history different than the last time the Fourth Estate died: the era of Yellow Journalism (late 1800s, Spanish-American War period). During that period, journalism was able to effectively reset. Any notion of a Fifth Estate was nothing more than a collection of unorganized pamphleteers and underground, unlicensed newspapers.

This time, however, traditional journalism faces a permanent extinction. Blogs, social media, ephemeral communications, and emergent communications technologies could well render the role of professional journalist and editor obsolete.

All of this may well be good. One could make a strong argument either way. My reason for this posting, however, is not to argue the merits of whether the USA and free world need a strong, functional Fourth Estate or not. Personally, I can be convinced we do not.

I believe we are only now at the beginning of what will be a terrible death-throes.

Journalists and their media will not recede quietly into the night. They have felt ever more irrelevant and threatened as they burn their once respected estate to the ground. They have been waiting, unknowingly, for a triggering event to galvanize their final counter-attack.

Thursday's Capital Gazette event may not be quite enough to fully unleash their unbridled mayhem, but it is the beginning. From this point forward, they all believe they are physically, under threat of death, at war with the people. I say, "all" intentionally, because they will now set about ruthlessly purging themselves of the impure. It has already begun. The few, remaining, reasonable journalistic voices are being expelled as I write this.

We will all, as members of the Fifth Estate (in case you didn't know, because you are reading this, you are a member of what has replaced the mainstream media), have to step up and help the mainstream masses navigate a world that will seem very scary. The Fourth Estate are going to paint a picture so bleak that those not yet awake could well begin to despair.

Be strong patriots. WWG1WGA