Using the term "mainstream media" makes me wince, but I agree with you. It's their ham-handed attempt to recover from being exposed as puppets of the Democratic Party; doubling down on the big lie that anything that runs counter to their narrative is "fake news" and that social media is to blame, not lack of journalistic integrity in previously (somewhat) trusted organizations.

Unfortunately, they'll be around for a long time, and definitely long enough to get away with the current popular trick: publishing lies, waiting for other organizations to reprint those lies, then issuing corrections quietly so that rubes talk about how that's proof of integrity.

"puppets of the Democratic Party"

Please that is the problem here. Constant looking for sides and making false statements while pretending to be the "one" that knows the truth in comments.

> Constant looking for sides and making false statements while pretending to be the "one" that knows the truth in comments.

The list of campaign donors to the DNC showed that media organizations as affiliated with the Democratic Party. They picked their sides; post-hoc documentation did not do this.

Further, recognizing corruption and lack of journalistic integrity doesn't mean that I'm pretending to be some sort of political prophet -- if anything, it's a bigger problem that those who criticize misinformation are expected to provide a equal counterbalance.

past edit window, but:

s/showed that media organizations as/showed that media organizations are/

not sure what happened to my english there