Like your grandma’s Facebook feed.
I suppose like it did before news orgs were a thing. So, like how it was about 200+ years ago?
Basically rumors and gossip like those spread in social media.
Is this a “what happens if we outlaw all News Organizations” situation, or a “What if the world evolved without News Organizations” scenario?
From there, the answer depends entirely on how you define “news” and “organization.”
Nobody would define aunt Sharon gossiping about her neighbor’s cat’s digestive issues as being a “news organization.” Almost everybody would define the New York Times, or CNN as one.
Between them lies a million shades of gray, and any distinction is going to be arbitrary.
In the “outlaw” scenario above, even the best attempts to define clear and unambiguous rules will just lead to gamesmanship and disappointment.
People want news. It’s a need as primitive as gossip. In fact, gossip is probably the answer to your question. But gossip is neither fast nor reliable, so people will inevitably invent news organizations to satisfy the need, as much as we have invented agriculture to satisfy our need to eat.
Perhaps when you say “news organizations” you intend a much more narrow definition, like maybe a “privately owned news organization”? That’s a dramatically different question though.
1500 and prior
We would have to go a long way back, before religions became the first worldwide media outlets. Hard to imagine how we would do in a Neanderthal world. Must have been rad.
