How can I auto-end the media process on Android? Media is consistently topping the list for battery usage at 80%+. I can go and force stop it, but it restarts by itself, when I use things such as camera or download things etc.

Task manager does allow you to auto end applications, but as media is not an application it is not on the list. Is there and app or any other way to auto-kill media on a NON rooted phone?
Seems like it would be far more useful to find out why the media scanner is using so much of your phone's battery.

I had a similar situation once, and it turned out to be caused by some filesystem corruption on the SD card. I took out the SD card and used fsck on my PC to check the filesystem for errors, and repair it. I then put the SD card back in my phone: media scanner ran once and finished normally. It no longer ran all the time, running down my battery.

You might like to try something similar before you attempt something that might stop apps on your phone (such as Gallery) working properly.