There are many well-documented cases where accountability failed, and brilliant people have written about it (Chomsky, Lippmann etc.).
But - and this is really important - it's not helpful to cynically assume that either everything is OK or that there is no accountability/meaning/use at all.
All of the important things in society (discussions, getting along, identification of problems, negotiating solutions) are not a state, but a process. There is accountability, but only as much as citizens and institutions manage to produce. Go ahead and help (constructively)!
The alternative to politics is (civil) war, the alternative to free media is basically the middle ages.