Jester,

Stewart/Maher/Colbert are priceless. and unfortunately, you're right about the advert income influencing news, and deeply these days. It's ironically somewhat funny, but at ABC Brian (can't recall his last name) - Williams?  the chief correspondent was rushed into retirement for something like lying about being in a helicopter that was near a hot fire zone when it wasn't. Hilary-esque mendaciousness. Bill O'Reilly screws possibly more women where he works than Clinton (Bill) did when he was President.  - and they give $1 million (give or take) for each woman as hush money? And no consequenses because of the ad revenue? (Least I haven't heard of any, but I rarely watch news now.) $1/mil for each woman, give or take. Plus whatever civil suits that might be brought against him. Man, you're not making a dime sitting in a courtroom rather than behind a news desk. Unless it's broadcast on TV, like OJ. 

And maybe that's the best answer - start a new TV news network, hire OJ, Cosby, and Clinton, and they can make the news and then report about it. How many viewers do you think that would garner? (Excuse my time-frame - I really don't know if anything was done to O'Reilly. Funny, I do recall O'Reilly being friends with one of those 3 leftwing comics.