Bargain prices in the Potemkin village

“In an earlier era men like John Milton and John Stuart Mill had argued that liberty depended on a press free from censorship and intimidation.  They were concerned primarily with freedom of belief and expression.  But in modern democracies the problem was different.  The press could be ‘free’ and still fail to do its job.  Without accurate and unbiased information the public could not form intelligent decisions.  Democracy would be either a failure or a sham.” — Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century