So the Fox was forced to respond to competitive pressure from a new entrant. Companies are fighting over customers. Sounds like exactly how a competitive free market is supposed to function.
The person I was replying to seemed to think that the competitive free market would push news organizations away from "being stupid and advancing stupid news".
That would be an example of the market pushing towards "being stupid and advancing stupid news".
This is exactly what is called a "market failure": Where the natural market forces push companies into making decisions which are bad for everyone -- bad for themselves, bad for their customers, bad for society as a whole. That's exactly what regulation is meant to address.
After WW2, no doubt in part after seeing how the Nazi party used broadcast medium to subvert discussion, the FCC instituted what they called the "Fairness Doctrine", which "required holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints." [1] This was eliminated in 1987.
Imagine how different the world would be if both Fox News and MSNBC were required to have people on both sides of the aisle have their say about all the political hot topics; and if Fox News didn't have to worry that doing so would cause an exodus to Newsmax, because Newsmax (perhaps once they reached a certain size) would be required to do the same thing.
