Not totally sure that I agree with the view that

Apart from that, they just cling to anything positive, serving to keep the populace entranced under the idea that everything is just dandy.

My observation is that the mainstream media, especially the financial media, has been on a campaign of telling us since March 2009 (the bottom of the stock market after the GFC crash) how bad things are. Hardly a handclap last week when the S&P500 made new all time highs.

One of my investing coaches asked a few questions about media. How many media companies were there in the US in 1950? How many are there now? Here is a chart that provides the recent story

The next question then becomes the key question the next time you are listening to what my wife calls the "talking heads" on CNBC or ABC or Bloomberg.tv or CNN

"How are they positioned compared to what they are saying?" Then position yourself that way.

Chart from Media Reform Information Center (sic) at http://www.corporations.org/media/ quoted in
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/RP0708/08rp01#_edn38