Well of course you're angry, everybody's angry ... and here's why

(CNN photo)

Okay, here's what happened:

• First, up-to-the-minute, 24-hour cable news networks changed the news cycle and that drastically altered WHEN and HOW consumers got their news. Still, news outlets needed to earn the trust of their consumers, so there were always multiple sources, fact-checking; telling the truth was paramount.

• Next, the exploding Internet helped give rise to literally thousands of websites that disseminate information, much of it without any attribution or legitimacy. As subsequent generations of news consumers began to care more about HOW they got their information than WHERE they got their information, trust took a backseat to convenience.

• Now, with so many places to get information (actual TV news programs, entertainment-oriented and/or comedy programs that essentially spoof the news, social media, talk radio, blogs (yes, like this one) and, sadly, even reality TV) "media" has pretty much become the wild, wild west, where anything goes and keeping the rules is for saps and suckers.

(The Impulse photo)

All that led us to specialized, echo-chamber news distribution, where consumers, whose attention spans have been ravaged by a gotta-have-it-now mentality, no longer want/need to get both sides of the story before forming an "opinion." Essentially, the days of getting the information we needed, from the likes of Walter Cronkite and/or the morning or even ⎼ "Look everybody, a dinosaur!" ⎼ an afternoon newspaper, has given way to searching out only the "news" we want, delivered the way we want. Real, fake or somewhere in between), it hardly matters anymore.

Quintessential TV newsman Walter Cronkite (Newsweek photo)

And that, folks, is how we got to this place, where respect, common decency and tolerance have been shoved aside ⎼ often violently so ⎼ by defensiveness, entitlement and personal segregation.

Welp, there you have it.

Now get out there and take another selfie. After all, it's probably been five minutes since the last one.

ONE LAST THING: Perhaps the saddest thing of all is, most people who read this will think, "Yep, that's right! Glad I don't do that."