The lust for wealth and ratings

Is there really no way the power of decent, right-thinking, humanitarian masses cannot be sharpened and aimed at the worst excesses of shady and downright deliberately misleading advertising and manipulation and mis-reporting of news? Are we really obliged to sit here with them constantly bamboozling us because of lack of options or organizational ability. I have no idea how this insidious, creeping awfulness can be tackled - but I'll bet there are some out there capable of stepping in to make a difference. I sense the phenomenon is becoming evermore intrusive and deceitful as it ratchets more and more towards the smelly end of human experience. Another swamp crying out for drainage.
The fear is that our most powerful political representatives are hand in glove with these forces of evil, so the obvious democratic means of attacking the awfulness is mostly closed to us. I also fear the most culpable, and the ones who should be most ashamed of this manipulation of our lives, and therefore most anxious to cure us of it, are the ones who profit most from it.