Democracy is prized in America, and a number of institutions assert that they are dedicated to preserving democracy by practicing and protecting certain specific freedoms. One of the institutions that promotes itself as a protector of democracy is the media (once known as the press because it was almost entirely oriented toward print, and now called the media with the addition of radio and television). The media delivers the news to the American people; it works through, and jealously protects, the First Amendment values of a Free Press and Freedom of Speech. The special role accorded the media derives from the view that the media serves as a stand-in for the public at large. Reporters go where the majority of people cannot and find information the average person cannot. The media sees to it that the government and other public institutions fulfill their duties and live up to the ideals of this society, then informing the public of that fact or of lapses. However, the media has been blamed more and more in recent years as an institution that damages democracy in a variety of ways ranging from increasing the costs of democracy to focusing on inconsequentials and failing to cover issues completely, fairly, or at all. Such criticisms have mounted over the past two decades since the Watergate era. The media today is much criticized for its failings and purported damaging of democracy by political leaders, candidates, pundits, and in movies and books like the recent Primary Colors. Some of the criticisms are fair and accurate, and some may be less so.
The United States is shaped by its federal form of government, and the party system operates in effect to make it not one national two-party system but fifty state party systems (Brady and Buckley 322). Some see this system as chaotic, while others consider it too highly structured. There are many suggestions as to how to reform the system decide the make-up of the leadership (...