media

media

in its modern meaning ‘newspapers and broadcasting regarded collectively’, is properly treated as a plural noun:

• When the media report events there must always be a line, an angle, a spin —B. Morrison, 1998.

It is increasingly used, especially by the media themselves, as a singular mass noun like agenda and data, but this use is not yet standard and should be avoided:

• ☒ The British media at its finest is the best in the world —Tony Blair on BBC Radio, 1998.

Above all, never write a media or the medias:

• ☒ Often urged on by a mass media that magnified the public danger, politicians tried to answer the…call for protective action —C. Townshend, 2002.

The word is often used in attributive position (before a noun):

• Each morning the England players, 150 coachloads of sunburnt supporters and several fleets of media men have braved what the tourist brochure calls the ‘Southern Coastal Motorway’ down to Galle —Sunday Express, 2001.