On the local level, here in Mississippi, the situation is much worse.  The news media here has pretty much been reduced to being an information clearinghouse for the governments.  Most reporters pander so much to the government reps it is truly sickening, they should go back to reporting for the eight-grade news flyer.  It has literally been decades since any story depicting government wrong-doing in this area was broken by any local media. I hope you are not naive enough to believe that none exists. Investigative reporting is apparently dead. If you carefully examine the structures of these local media and governments, you will find that they have a quite cozy relationship indeed.  But they seem to be losing some of their grip owing to the miserable showing of their main man in the US house race.  lol