I think that if the government is doing any kind of "media journalism" it needs to be extremely limited in scope or the guarantees of independence are so airtight as to be unimpeachable.
I suppose Voice Of America comes closest to something like that.
My druthers would be to view even that with some healthy skepticism though. VOA has been important to American government policy, sure, and many places for decades under oppressive regimes had populations that were very thankful for information provided by the VOA. Still... Skirts the line of propaganda in many ways and it seems currently Trump is making moves to turn VOA into a propaganda tool so...
Social media and online affects are still something we as a society need to grapple with. And while the "direct" aspect of the way the online world has put citizen journalists into a driver's seat as never before, unbound by anything like editorial oversight, which is easy to applaud, this democratization of journalism has done far less to clarify most issues and done way more to just muddy waters and fling mud.
And honestly, as much praise as they have gotten over the years many of the personalities that have emerged from this democratization can be problematic if you start to give them a good look. While it is easy to say, pick over the bones of any credibility say an Alex Jones had (Remembering that he was pretty well received among a lot of "Left/Progressive" types for a many years, especially with his and many others like Glenn Beck's faux anti-elite populism and embrace of "NWO\ILUMINNATI\Secret Cabals" narratives to explain literally everything... Which we are seeing given its modern paint job with the "Everyone and everything is related to Elite Pedos and Epstein's case and death proves it" that, funnily enough is yet again where the fringiest of the Left get told by the fringiest of the Right that they are on the same side... Repeating the Jones\Beck dance where Reactionary Faux Populists get "woke" points for saying conspiracy theories Left and Right buy into for the express purpose of hooking those susceptible to Reactionary Propaganda... But I digress. ) you'll find a lot of folk that will still go to bat for say, Assange or, yes, Snowden and... Problematic doesn't even begin to cover the issues with both men, again, yes, even Saint Snowden.
I think something else is also important to consider: Even with all the advantages of modern society and modern technology that today's reporters and news organizations have in comparison to decades past the operation of any kind of accurate and wide ranging news gathering is an extremely expensive undertaking requiring the employment of a vast number of people that are the most important parts of producing "news". Analysts with decades of specialized expertise and experience, men and women willing to take great risks in hot zones, travel expenses, and oh yeah, the commiserate salaries and benefits that ensure you get top talent... This is an expensive endeavor (Which makes journalism something that in fact is always susceptible to corporate interference at a certain professional level...) that has little in the way of anything concrete outside of ratings/clicks to justify its existence to corporate overlords as to its "value".
Do I have any answers?
No.
I just think that as with much of the Internet the positives of the sudden (Last... 25 years lets say?) democratization of journalism and news has not kept up with the negatives. And it seems well funded "corporate" news has for a variety of reasons (Not all or even the majority of which is merely because of nefarious intentions from corporations in my view...) not risen to the occasion.
