When the government picked companies and gave them monopoly rights to frequencies in San Francisco and Los Angeles and New York and Chicago, it was picking the winners of the competition; it wasn't setting the terms of the competition.

Our existing media system today is the direct result of government laws and subsidies that created it.

A big part of my book deals with the caliber of journalism. Our journalism in general is deplorable, and on elections in particular it's very ineffectual. There are a lot of problems, a lot of them having to do with to problems within the professional code of journalism, which defines its role as the regurgitation of what people in power say. Another big problem is that we allow people with money to basically buy what's talked about in campaigns through running TV ads.

You know, a left-winger, the barrier to success if you're on the left in commercial radio is a mile and a half higher than it is if you're on the right.

Basically what they're saying is, if you want to be on TV, if you want to be a credible candidate, you've got to buy ads. And if you're not buying ads, you're not a credible candidate, we don't cover you.

And understand that scarce spectrum is used today for example for cell phone operators, they have to pay for the airwaves they use, for their services.

Also, the commercial media in a superior position, really, to any other corporate lobby, because where would people hear about commercial media or corporate media criticism, where would they hear criticism of them other than in the commercial media?