>I place a lot of blame at the feet of the news media also.


An excellent satire of modern journalism can be found in Terry Pratchett's novel "The Truth".

One of the central ideas is that people want to hear about what they already know. Most people claim that they're interested in News, but what they're really interested in is Olds.

Pratchett used to be a journalist so he brings a lot of real-world experience to the story.