While Notre Dame's new media access policies may be an overreaction, as many have said, it's also important to think about what they are a reaction to.
The quantity of sports journalism and sports commentary has increased exponentially in the last 20 years, while the overall quality has diminished. Hobbyists and students are responsible for the considerable majority of published sports content nowadays, and as writers they are an uneven lot. At least two thirds — and here I think I'm being conservative — of the sports articles that are put out these days wouldn't have gotten published 20 years ago.