A student called into the John Robbie Show on Talk Radio 702 yesterday morning to complain that the "mainstream news media" were biased against the #FeesMustFall movement and were not reporting fairly on the provocations the students were experiencing. On Twitter, on the other hand, it is being argued that the mainstream news media are supporting the protesting students but ignoring the "trending topic", #Sciencemustfall.This is the cause taken up by students, as shown on YouTube, who want to "decolonise" science by, for example, incorporating into it the physics of directing lightning bolts onto your enemies, as sangomas are wont to do.Donald Trump is parlaying the US population's lack of trust in "the mainstream media" into a battle cry: "The corporate media [are] no longer involved in journalism. They're a political self-interest [sic], no different than any other lobbying or financial entity with a total political agenda."Trevor Manuel's speech at the Business Day- Financial Mail new-look launch pulled no punches. He railed against "media owners and executives who advance their narrow agendas and have used the media to destroy trust."This general disillusion should give the mainstream news media pause.They should be in continuous self-questioning mode, assessing bias, interests and motives for each piece of work they publish . They should be super- vigilant in the execution of their duty to their readers .As Manuel says, "the media have a duty to be rigorous, and to unashamedly and unapologetically assist in reconstructing our national conversation".But the argument might already be moot. The more that faith in the mainstream news media is eroded, the more readers will turn to social media - on which news content is dictated by an algorithm skewed to the bias of the individual reader. News will become just an extension of personal beliefs reinforced by a community that agrees only with itself and will never see a contrarian view.The future of the media is an apartheid of biased personalised belief systems served up in easily consumable media treats. This "alternative media" has absolutely no safeguards against corporate, political and transnational geo-political interests.The mainstream news media should reflect on their role and reinforce media institutions - because the alternative is really scary...