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I'm in advertising planning/buying, and the media/medium thing has irked me since day one of my working in this business.
My mass comm. professors used to give me all sorts of shit if I used "media" as singular. I'd get points off on papers, etc. So I became something of a stickler about it after graduation. When I arrived at my first ad agency, I was surprised at how few people treated "media" as a plural. On top of that, like Lounsbury, I heard a lot of people using 'medias' and, more commonly, 'mediums' when referring to channels of communication.
As a matter of fact, I had a heated exchange on an industry discussion list with someone who insisted on using 'mediums' all the time. It turned into a flamewar. Some time later, he and I became really good friends and at one point went into business with one another. We were fond of pointing out that our first interaction was a flamewar over this silly subject.
Surprisingly, many years later I'm still anal about it. I write a lot of opinion pieces for the trade, and you'll not find a singular 'media' in several hundred articles I've written. It's just one of those things - in this respect, I'm kind of like those people who freak out if you forget that "a lot" is two words.
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