There has definitely been a lot of talk about how legacy media still drives much of the debate, in terms of research and writing and breaking investigative stories. Although that is no longer entirely the case, the Pew Center did a great study on the news ecosystem in Baltimore (Note: Statistics from “The Wire” not included due to mature content).

http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/how_news_happens

Two key findings you might be interested in.But a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, which takes a close look at the news ecosystem of one city suggests that while the news landscape has rapidly expanded, most of what the public learns is still overwhelmingly driven by traditional media—particularly newspapers

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And of the stories that did contain new information nearly all, 95%, came from traditional media—most of them newspapers. These stories then tended to set the narrative agenda for most other media outlets.

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Although this is city specific, which means that the results are probably different when the entire nation’s discourse is analyzed. But I would love to see Pew tackle that.