An excellent book about the media by a first class journalist about his own profession in the UK
Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media reviews
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The central thesis of Flat Earth News is that the quality and truthfulness of modern news is being steadily diminished; not by overt propaganda or governmental interference, but by a steady erosion of budgets in the name of maximising investment returns. This leads inexorably to journalism that depends on once-over-lightly stories, with the minimum background or investigation, recycled press releases from political parties and PR firms, and prepackaged feeds from wire services that are quite upfront about how they are not interested in the truth, they just report what they receive from their sources without verification.
The result is news-lite, junk food journalism, where only 12% of the average newspaper is produced by the newspaper's own reporters, who often work to punishing schedules that allow no time for fact-checking.
Flat Earth News is mainly based on the author's experience working in the UK newspaper business, but provides copious examples of a global trend, focusing particularly coverage of the lead up to the Iraq war, and the Millenium Bug at the turn of the century.