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To a representative government such as ours, which is cherished by the American people, an informed electorate is vital.

The people have every reason to expect scrupulous truth from the "Free Press", for this reason alone, though there are others.

IMHO you have fallen for some propaganda yourself.
If you read the First Amendment it says nothing about "fairness," "accuracy," "objectivity," "balance," or "truth." It says that we-the-people have the right to express our opinions. Whether you or I think any, or most, of them are wrong or right - and whether the government thinks they are wrong or right.
That does not mean that you or I have a right to be listened to, only that we have the right to speak. If every Tom, Dick, and Harry has the right to talk or to print, a lot of what they have to say will not be worth listening to or reading - and no one person could listen to, or read, it all. The inescapable conclusion is that the people - you and I, and all the rest - are responsible to ourselves to draw our own conclusions notwithstanding the fact that we will be subject to misinformation and propaganda.
It is the worst possible system, except for all the others. Without the First Amendment, the government would tell us who to listen to. That would be no good, as any journalist would tell you. But they go to the opposite extreme and try to gull us into thinking that they are the ones to tell us who to listen to. Well, it's a free country, they can try to tell me that - but I have my own opinion in that regard, and following their opinion in that regard is not part of my agenda.
If we really followed the First Amendment, broadcasting would be impossible because the censorship which creates clear channels to broadcast in would not be permitted.

You make good points, C, and what you say is true. However, I'm not advocating a controlled press--certainly not government controlled, quite the contrary. As you point out, the chaos of multiple opinions is healthy.

However, I do condemn the degeration of the established news media, i.e. established before, say, the 1980's, into a propaganda machine, through which its multiple agents and outlets speak as a single voice, and not a voice dedicated to truth for its own sake, but a voice committed to propaganda, and to be more specific, to propaganda designed to promote a specific agenda and viewpoint and to persuede the public to commit to them also.

If an important issue should arise, e.g. if Global Warming should be as great a threat as Al Gore insists, the people could not be blamed for ignoring the warnings of a newsmedia that they have learned to mistrust.