In Cronkite's day, news was a public service and a matter of network pride paid for by other programing. Now, due to massive competition for viewers, news programing pays the bills. Advertisers are the customers and we the viewers are the product they are buying.

Hannity and Rush are the highest paid opinion guys and worth their 40 million a year because us-against-them sells especially well to folks who can't tell opinion from facts, or prefer not to for some reason.