Why the Rush?

After a recent conversation with a news photographer I realized I needed to write something regarding the latest, greatest media push, the headlong rush into multi-media.
As newspapers and other gathering organizations rush to arm their staffers with sound equipment and video gear I find myself wondering, "Do we really need or want this?"
If someone said, "Hey, our budgeting department needs to spend the money," I would say, "Okay, I get it," but I find it very hard to believe the average paper reader is asking for video links at the papers homepage.
When I hear people talk of their local paper, with few exceptions, they are complaining, and when they complain it is not about video, photography or the need to see multi-media presentations, they complain about the quality of the news gathering.
It seems to me if you were a still photographer, and now you are a still photographer, videographer and sound technician, you run the risk doing three things a third as well as you did just one. And please tell me you negotiated for three times the pay seeing as you are now doing three jobs???
Today we are absolutely flooded with images, sounds, videos, etc, many from the news world, but how many of these are well done? Thought out?
I think we have many times the images we once had, but most are just quick hits to satisfy our hyper-short attention span. It all feeds into the talking head, which is no longer the talking head, but also the sports scores, S&P 500, weather and Brittany all broadcasting, at the same time, to your one head at home.
Can we all say, "Enough already."
Perhaps it is time to put on the right blinker, move to the middle lane, and slow down, not speed up.