Certainly there's a great need for alternative platforms with increasing censorship on social media of dissident voices. At the same time media is more and more centralized with the illusion of choice and diversity. Look at Facebook, which owns - Whatsapp + Instagram and Disney just purchased 21 Century Fox the other day.

I think you make a good case for DACs being a viable solution. I also agree that independent media can become walled off echo chambers except on a very few issues. But like you say, we all don't need to agree on every issue but we surely could agree on cultivating a network (beyond a single platform) that could lend mutual support through connectivity, distribution and the use of a universal media token. Perhaps inter-blockchain operability may also help to solve some of the issues independent media faces and help prevent alternative perspectives from being almost completely drowned out.

A few people on your list standout in particular as being well positioned to help influence a tide change.

Are you familiar with @benswann's blockchain based project Isegoria? While I don't believe it's a DAC it's in the same spirit and I think you'll find a lot of parallels with your vision.

https://isegoria.com/

https://steemit.com/isegoria/@v4vapid/ben-swann-to-launch-blockchain-based-independent-media-network-isegoria

Personally, I've spent the vast majority of my time on Steemit trying to support independent media and news, so I'm very interested to know more about how a DAC system could provide the solutions we're all searching for.

I've contemplated creating a journalism/research based token with Steem Engine but I hesitate as there are so many tokens being created "just because", and not comfortable with flooding the market with more and more tokens for people to keep track of.