Are we better off now?

[xoxoxoBruce]

I had the great pleasure of living in pre-LBJ America. The America that ended in Dallas in 1963. Happy days, literally.
Sure, the CIA was giving us a black eye, especially in South America. And our government was doing shady things around the world, but "we the people" generally didn't know it. If there was a blurb in the paper, most people didn't understand it's ramifications. Ike's farewell address was loaded with dire and prophetic warnings, and we said "bye-bye Ike, have a nice retirement", duh.
Then came 60 minutes, CNN, Fox, Internet and a slew of other entities to explain, 8 ways to sunday, what everything and anything that ever, does or could happen, means. The president couldn't even get a blow job without a national crisis. The politicians have certainly earned this scrutiny, Nixon being the prime example.
But the question is are we better off now? Or have we come to the point where everything is overanalyzed and spun to be so far from reality, we know nothing. Are we inundated with so much detail, that the public is numb?