I've come to the conclusion that no society aspiring to civilized values & norms can accept profit-driven media because of the inevitable sensationalizing that always results. Unfortunately I can't see an adequate replacement, as governments would simply churn out propaganda and without revenues no media organization can pay salaries etc. So it seems that the only solution is to impose strict rules regarding the necessity of content corresponding to empirical reality. Enforcing those rules, however, will inevitably be contentious and we'd need rules about providing adequate context.

Then we'd have the problem that 99% of people have zero interest in real-world context-sensitive facts; they just want to be entertained and/or made anxious so they can feel "informed" and have something to repeat along with everyone else.

In the end I suspect we'll simply see more and more and more of what we already have: mindless sensationalism masquerading as news and opinion, balkanizing an already ignorant population into angrier and more hate-filled groups. And very few of those who contribute to the problem will even realize they're doing it. The BBC is a great case study for this phenomenon: it's now just mindless trash that contributes to social decay and fear, but I'm sure the naive journalists who write the nonsense all believe they're serving the public interest.