The Atlantic excerpts a new book from two academics and a consultant on media moguls, and its thrust is that the owners and operators of leading news organizations have squandered immense opportunity through their attraction to myths.

The book, The Curse of the Mogul, identifies and argues against several media myths: global expansion, continued growth, convergence, even the focus on content as king. It suggests that, rather than focus on basic value creation, companies and their titans devalued themselves by pursuing strategies that could not be sustained.

Rather than expand and reinvest, operators would have been better to simply return funds to investors.