Does the news actually do that though? Does regularly and generally consuming the news do more than provide new topics for water cooler chat? I can understand the argument for being informed through selective reading/viewing (which the article makes), but not so much for being generally informed.
I think it does do more. It ads another degree of accountability to people with power. It might not be much, but it's something. One small anecdote; a development in a local suburb is hitting a brick wall because the media has revealed a relationship between the developer and the council. That development was going up on public land without proper oversight or tender.
Couple of bigger anecdotes;
- Watergate. A president's criminal behaviour was dug up by a newspaper, forcing him to resign.
- Vietnam war coverage forced the US to reconsider their attitudes to weapons with high collateral damage, conscription and large scale land wars in general.
