Of course it wouldn't be the NYT or Guardian reporting were the cycle at the opposite peak. It would be the Telegraph or I guess the US equivalent would be WaPo?
Partisan newspapers aren't going to forget their party inclinations, though they all have a fine track record attempting to borrow and reform any good ideas that originate on the other side of the fence.
What I do notice distinctly, with both those and probably all US media to some extent is the degree they come onside around "national issues" and military action, often becoming distinctly non-neutral, even when it against their perceived political alignment. A tendency that is far less pronounced in the UK papers - though that is increasing.
UK media is often quite happy to lay the boot into the sitting government, even if it is "their own". Neutrality usually gets bought and made partisan (and crap) - Murdoch and Times, Lebedev and Independent. FT is probably the closest we have left, and their buyer haven't yet ruined it.
Indeed. My point is that social media works about equally well for both mainstream left (the Obama campaign) and mainstream right (the Trump campaign). It also works for both far-left and far-right. I know people who have been radicalized this way in both directions.
> I suspect whoever had used it first would have been celebrated at the time. [...] If Cambridge Analytica had come along 5 years earlier in the political cycle, the Republicans would have been lauded for finding a marvellous new technique to engage the electorate
I'm sorry, but this is such a naive take that I honestly don't know how to respond to it. Even as a child I was able to deduce, from the obvious editorial slant in the newspaper, that an inversion of tribal affiliations like this would never happen. I challenge you to find any article in the NYT or Guardian that paints any new election strategies by any right-wing politicians favorably.