According to some historians, conservative statesman Edmund Burke was the first to coin the term "fourth estate" when referring to the media, in 1787 during a parliamentary debate. Upon the opening up of the House of Commons of Great Britain to the press gallery, he said: "Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all."
And the infamous media ego was born. Apparently, the generous compliment went straight to their heads.
Just a century later, the press had become so corrupt, so powerful in parliamentary Britain that Oscar Wilde revisited Burke's famous quote to lament: "Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three."
To read more, Go Here Now.
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.