Throughout the world, two mergers sweep the industry. On the business side, there is increasing concentration of ownership and creation of strategic alliances that make for homogenization and sameness, conformity and cloning. A second merger fuses the news business into show business. Entertainment values and packaging take precedence over substance and content. While the media echoes the dangers of weapons of mass destruction, it becomes a weapon of mass distraction, dumbing down the news, selling consumption and celebrity with soap opera style storytelling.
Privatization is the watchword.
As the media giants war for market share, the public is conditioned to a junk news diet. The elites are well served, the masses ignored. There has been a proliferation of business news, but little labor news. In America, as globalization makes global news more important, there is less overage. In China, Murdoch drops the BBC from his Star satellite after the Beijing commisars complain about too much human rights coverage.