The media collectively are more powerful than ever. But ...

Journalist David Frum argues that, because of technology and because of the thinning ranks of journalists within news organizations, there is less fact-checking and verification of information in journalism today. Journalism, he says, no longer has internal safeguards against errors.

Now, the safeguards are outside - bloggers and other media outlets will catch errors from competing content providers.

Is this acceptable? Is it bad?

He concluded a recent speech by saying, "The media collectively are more powerful than ever, but individual media enterprises are much weaker than they used to be. This gives sophisticated messengers both greater incentive – and greater ability – to shape the mental universe in which we all live."

Is this an optimistic point of view or are we doomed to be controlled by a handful of media moguls?