Does the media (at large) reflect or dictate public opinion?

[Beestie]

I think we need lots of papers and TV news sources, so we can get a better spectrum of coverage.

What we need are honest journalists - everybody's an op-ed these days.

Funny, while the schools are taking opinions (theories) out of the curriculum leaving only isolated "factoids," the journalists are taking the facts out of the news leaving only opinion masked as information.