I'm old, so I remember the media consolidation of the 80s. FCC rules about ownership of newspapers and radio/TV stations, and number of stations in a given market went away. Soon after, the fairness doctrine did too. This lead directly to conservative radio. All objections got waved off and laughed away: the free market has spoken.

Now we have a situation where the same conservatives are getting cut out, and it's no longer the free market speaking, and the government is supposed to step in to protect and affirm a particular set of opinions.

I don't think this is a particularly consistent viewpoint, and it makes me wonder how much the free market had to do with ditching the fairness doctrine and the less conservative radio and TV voices.