I certainly won’t argue that you have the more diverse media ownership - even if most of it is left wing - and maybe my concerns are ungrounded in this case.
But one of the questions I get a lot from American friends (or FRiends - guess I can say that now, having a few posts under my belt!) is how did the UK get in such a mess? One of the biggest contributory factors has been the classic “who controls the media controls the population.” Murdoch is an expert at controlling the media and making sure his staff are on message, something that is not widely known in the USA.
Side note - I always enjoy reading your posts - you tend to do a serious amount of analysis and present it in a way that even someone not familiar with the players can appreciate.
The timelessly charming Joeseph Stalin put it succinctly. "Ideas are more dangerous than guns. We don't allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas?"
The internet is turning that dictum on its head. People without guns are becoming armed with dangerous, non-state media approved ideas. Even in a relatively free society like America, it's become possible to bring down establishment information gatekeepers like Dan Rather. Or drop the hammer on actual leaders, like Drudge did on President Clinton with the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Even our 'free media' wouldn't touch those stories out of editorial bias. Now they have to.
Back to the more civilized lands of Europe, I'd hazard a guess that this process is still in it's infancy compared to what we've done in America because Europeans are largely trusting of their governments and state media. Probably for cultural reasons, it's easy to overlook the significance of a resistance media. In less developed places like Egypt, Tunisa or Syria, a bit of internet counter-media information flow goes a long, long way to countering politically fragile dictatorships.
Englad is different, of course. Your mileage may vary. Er, kilometerage...?