Their customers are not the public, but their advertisers. They need to please the latter, not the former, and their advertisers don't care what's on the news as long as the right demographics are watching it. That's why network news is starting to sound like local news, and local news is starting to sound like "Excess Hollywood" and ""Infotainment Tonite". It is no surprise that the decline in quality of network television news coincided precisely when it became a business, run by the programming department to maxzimize ratings, rather than a prestigious loss leader operated by independent editorial staffs. Paddy Chayefsky's "Network" wasn't just a black comedy, it was right-on-target social satire.

Frankly, I don't see any way around this. Having a lot of competing press outlets is good for the individual news consumer, but does little to inform the population as a whole. I certainly don't want the press to be regulated, but I don't like the hold their advertisers and circulation departments have on them either.

Perhaps it could be financed by subscription, as appears to be the trend online. Sure, it would then go after different ideological markets by tailoring its message to them, but I'd rather have in-depth slanted news than scrupulously unbiased pap. And I could pick my own level of bias, something like "Mother Jones" would be perfect.