In 2005, you can get dozens of channels if you subscribe to cable, many more on satellite
But most of those channels are owned by about five different companies. Same with your radio dial - over half of those stations are going to be Clear Channel-owned. Same with your newspapers; most of those are going to be owned by, or own, your local TV outlets.
True, the internet has ushered in an age of "information overload" - for the people that have their own access to the internet.
Rather than creating a giant bureacracy over at the FCC to regulate the free flow of information, I think it makes more sense to change the channel when you hear or see commentary you don't like.
Change it to a channel owned by the same company? How does that solve anything?
The "diversity" of media is deceptive; there's a lot less choice than there would appear to be. Information oveload, yes, but we also live in an age of media conglomeration, with significant barriers to access to all but a handful of media elites.
It's a strange quandary; I'm not certain that I know what to do about it, and I don't yet think that government-mandated "fairness" is the answer. At any rate I'm a lot less interested in "fairness" in the media than I am in
accuracy or
truthfulness in the media, which is in short supply these days.
Our Constitution puts us in a bit of a problem, I think. In 1776 the biggest threat to personal freedom was an overbearing, authoritarian government that had not even a token responsibility to its citizens, and the Constitution is designed to protect us from that. These days, the greatest threat to our personal freedom comes not from the government but from private enterprise, and the provisions of the Constitution make it very hard to defend ourselves from, essentially, ourselves.
I thought the FOXBlocker being sold was kind of funny
Somewhat off-topic - Thinkgeek.com sells a keychain widget that spams the IR codes for "power off" for about a bazillion different TV brands all in the space of a few seconds; you just point it at TVs in random locations and press the button to deactivate them. Ingenious, if you ask me.