In the age of the internet, I don't think its the media doing the gatekeeping. Arguably, exploitive social media algorithms have put a serious dampening on surfacing better information to the average citizen, because unfortunately thats were seemingly the majority of folks consume media, and that is optimized for what is effectively outrage, regardless of the platform.

What we've lost is independent media having outlets to reach an audience. Pre proliferation of centralized social media platforms, it was easier to find independent voices on the internet through more de-centralized means. I remember coming across the works of Fredrich Hayek and Paul Krugman via the same message board in the early 2000s. Diversity of thought was at least respected, even if it got heated.

I've noticed a steady decline in diversity of thought co-existing on the internet as general social media coalesced around Meta (Facebook, Instagram), Snapchat, Twitter and TikTok. Reddit has also had a slower but meaningful decline in the co-mingling of ideas on merits, and perhaps subjectively, I feel it took longer to get there but ultimately has ended up in the same place, an echo chamber.

There was a time I remember, when progressive, liberal, and conservative people also could seem to agree on some baselines, like not enabling racists.

Where are these "good enough" third parties? In my (mostly but it's complicated) Democratic state, there have been third party candidates in various local positions, especially in urban areas, but it's been more a way to thumb their nose at Democrats rather than any political differences. I struggle to see how any left-leaning third-party would have much relevance in any of our bluish states and they are unlikely to get any traction in red states. If we want to talk about a third-party that looks like Eisenhower Republicans, now that might be interesting but thus far the right-wing of the country has shown little appetite.