Not centralized, but consolidated: when people all got their news from the same half dozen or so sources, they were a lot more capable of agreeing on basic sets of underlying facts with which issues could be debated, instead of just going through endless cycles of recusals and spin about the facts and their basic interpretation.

Sure, it didn't live up to certain capitalistic ideals, but maybe it turns out that not every domain of human life benefits from existing in a bare knuckle free market.