> There are things that matter more, like anything surrounding the fact that running concentration camps is outsourced to for-profit corporations[0], never mind the camps themselves. How about Amazon paying anti-union astroturfers to post on Twitter[1], or Walmart firing everyone they can who's pro-union[2]. How about serious issues over climate change denial at the highest levels?[3][4][5]
All of these examples were found by searching just one site.
The issues you mention are covered in mainstream media. You don't even need to look hard to find them. Even CBS is covering this stuff. You can argue that by percentage we're spending too much time talking about dumb stuff, and I'd agree with that. But its not hard to find reporting that's more substantial. Check out the NYT's politics section, just as an example.
So I'm not sure I understand this point of view, at all, because none of these issues are fringe debates, they're all mainstream issues that are commonly referenced in popular media. We did have large amounts of coverage about stuff like family separation, and we've continued to have major coverage of it since. Even Fox covered family separation at the border (although they obviously weren't as critical as most other news sources)[6].
If the point of the media moguls is to get us to forget that climate change is happening; again, they're doing a really bad job, given that climate change and the Green New Deal has become one of the biggest talking points of the entire Democratic party.
The difference between how the US News and Chinese news covers institutional problems and rights-abuses is a really strong argument in favor of establishing a universally free press. Free press talks about internal problems. State press does not.
[0]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbjq4n/the-immigrant-crac...
[1]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59npad/amazons-creepy-twi...
[2]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mb8y9a/the-walmart-subred...
[3]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nzp7ag/louisianas-climate...
[4]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bmev9a/kentuckys-climate-...
[5]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/53vd7n/maines-climate-cha...
[6]: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/what-trumps-zero-tolerance-...
Are they? These times are so divided, particularly because neither side can agree on anything and the "above the fold" news coverage is farcical. Decide for yourself whether the media companies are driving divisions for page views -> clicks -> ad money, or if there's coordination in dividing us so more of our collective energy is spent caring about tweets about Greenland or to argue the semantics of the phrase concentration camp.
There are things that matter more, like anything surrounding the fact that running concentration camps is outsourced to for-profit corporations, never mind the camps themselves. How about Amazon paying anti-union astroturfers to post on Twitter, or Walmart firing everyone they can who's pro-union. How about serious issues over climate change denial at the highest levels?
The greatest trick the media moguls ever pulled, was convincing the world their propaganda isn't propaganda.