From morning until night, every individual is subjugated to overwhelming amounts of sensory input. The magnitude of this torrential influx only seems to grow exponentially as the twenty first century dismantles various informational filters that existed in the past. With the sophistication of the internet and other modern technological advancements, the pool of information readily available to the average person now appears infinitely deep. While these changes are liberating, it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate between the "incredible medley of fact, propaganda, rumor, suspicion, clues, hopes and fears." This medley that Lippmann describes refers specifically to the prototypical news gathering agency of his time period (the newspaper office), but almost one hundred years later it has a more universal application.
Now that advertisements and propaganda have penetrated every viable orifice of American society, the distinction between fact and fiction has become slightly more ambiguous. The responsibility of sorting through this olympus sized pile of shit no longer rests solely in the hands of the newspaper office. Since the informational filters of Walter Lippmann's time have broken down, "the task of selecting and ordering that news" bypasses the professionally trained journalist and becomes the responsibility of the consumer himself (or herself).
This startling change in the balance has uprooted the long held practices of journalism, but the "task of selecting and ordering" information is still one of the "truly sacred and priestly offices in a democracy." Its just that now these priestly offices are filled with media illiterate sheep and not trained professionals. Since the task of selecting and ordering information is a sacred one, and the means of doing so are temporarily out of professional hands, this leads one to hope for an increase in public awareness. This kind of educational directive could potentially empower an entire nation of media savy individuals (an effect with profound implications for the journalistic occupation), but until this ideal is reached the custodial obligations fall upon those with a superlative understanding of how our media works.
This quote from Walter Lippmann's "Liberty and the News" almost seems outdated at first glance, but its basic conclusion is still translatable to contemporary society. While the newspaper offices of Walter Lippmann's era are no longer the means through which varying strands of information are injected into society, the task of ordering this information will forever be a sacred part of this functioning democracy. Without the informational filters of Lippmann's era, the monumental responsibility of sorting this news falls directly onto the heads of the public, and yet another Bono like call to increased public awareness must reverberate through American society.