Just a couple of points here:
1. What makes you think that news media is "successful" in any economic sense these days? Newspapers are closing up shop on a regular basis, laying off staff regularly, losing advertising revenue at alarming rates and generally no longer trusted by those who were their regular customers/audience.
Newspapers are largely getting killed not because people consume less news media, but because people are mostl consuming news online, and want it for free.
Newspapers were heavily reliant on subscriptions for physical paper, as well as classified ads. Both of those were severely damaged by competitors offering the same services for free (Craigslist), or news stories for free. Or worse, offering that media outlet's stories for free (via news aggregators and/or deep linking).
Media outlets also underwent a big round of consolidation in the wake of the Reagan and other deregulations.
Unsurprisingly, the news media is subject to political polarization. E.g. nearly 90% of Democrats believe the media should have a watchdog role; Republicans knock that down to 42%. In January 2016, over 70% of both Democrats and Republicans believed that was an important role. Hmmmmm
As to other types of success, the media may be on a bit of an upswing. Companies like the NY Times have seen a big run-up in paid subscriptions; more people are watching cable news; more people are paying attention to media in general; and mobile devices are used more and more for news. (
Americans? Attitudes About the News Media Deeply Divided Along Partisan Lines | Pew Research Center)
As to trust: That is a broader issue, affecting numerous institutions in the US. Congress, churches, banks, and the Presidency have all lost more trust than the news media.
]2. Not sure if the US is the same as Canada, but the government here, and I suspect in the US as well, controls not only who has access to the limited slots available on the airwaves but also regulates what can be carried over those airwaves.
Nope, that's mostly gone. It's been deregulated for years.
OTA TV is purely a commercial venture. "Equal time" requirements went away in the 80s.
There are no ideological requirements whatsoever for cable news. It's strictly commercial.
There was a time when journalists like Walter Cronkite were watched and trusted world wide to report the news in an unbiased and straight forward manner. Those days are long gone.
That's because there were far fewer news outlets, and more trust in a variety of institutions.
Back then, it was basically ABC, CBS, NBC, public broadcasting (both TV and radio), and your local newspaper. That was pretty much it. Today, there are hundreds of media outlets, instant international access to news events, and people filming events and posting them on Facebook Live.
And if Cronkite were alive and working today, he'd be vilified for his reporting. Partisans aren't looking for neutrality, y'know.
The media also did things that would not fly today. For example, the media was well aware of shenanigans in the White House, such as JFK's mistresses; they kept it quiet. For a variety of reasons, that got blown away by the Gary Hart scandal (
How Gary Hart and 'Monkey Business' Changed the Media and Politics - The Leonard Lopate Show - WNYC). These days, a failure to report something like a mistress would be classified not as restraint, but as favoritism.
