The press is in a sad state of affairs. Capitalism is the greatest system ever. But there are some enterprises where the accumulation of revenue isn’t the most important thing. I work in one of those industries--healthcare. The press is another area where this is not the case. So we have entertainment in place of news. As a result, you only hear about the bridge when it collapses; not when it fails 8 consecutive inspections.
As a civilization, we could admit that the truth--that our fantastic system is not best for all industries and a certain amount of public subsidy is in everyone’s interest. But some conservative somewhere will shout “socialism” and it won’t go anywhere. If you want to know why the press is in the state it is in, look no further than that.