Grenada, Beirut, Washington — with the utmost in high-tech media coverage, the news isn’t getting any better. Of course, these times are arguably rougher than most, but as I watch each “crisis” come and go, I wonder if the news ever can get better. The mass media feels compelled to sandwich as many hard-hitting, gut-wrenching tidbits of “news” as possible between its commercials, and as the old newspaper maxim goes: good news doesn’t sell papers. But maybe it doesn’t have to. While most of the mass media continues to coil around itself, new and potentially wider channels for information are unfolding. Like the printing innovations that years ago paved the way for small, independent newspapers and magazines, recent advances in television and radio technology are at last beginning to make those media more accessible.