Reagan promised us if we’d just deregulate our media and abandon local ownership requirements for newspapers, radio stations, and TV outlets that we’d end up with a flourishing, diverse, and edifying media sector. He kicked it off by ending enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 and Bill Clinton carried it forward with the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Instead, a small handful of billionaires and rightwing companies own virtually every consequential radio and TV station in the country; most of our local newspapers are bankrupt; more than half of the ones left are owned by a couple of New York-based hedge funds; and hate, lies, and disinformation have proven more effective at driving profits than honest information or concern for the public good so they’ve become an unscrupulous business model on the right.

Source: Have You Noticed America Is Looking Like a Third World Nation? | The Smirking Chimp