[exceptione]

You are hitting the nail right on the head.

> have lead to an outsized perception of it being for the public good.

Exactly!

> Yet we do nothing about it in particular (Australia and the US).

Right.

First step: getting the public to know what the role of the Fourth Estate is in a democracy.

Second step: getting the public to know that they currently live in absurd infotainment landscape, getting them to understand how their media works.

Third step: getting the public to understand the importance of democracy.

Fourth step: holding media outlets accountable for misinformation.

The big danger for those in the know is that they get cynical. Then you have recreated the Soviet/Putin ecosystem, and the oligarchs have free reign. America is inching far closer to that, but in the mind of Americans "this can't happen here".