It just occurred to me that our political news discourse has gotten so bad, it was easy to assume "the arena" could be the name of a news / opinion show, but my mistake.

>it's almost as if we need to break off high-value, low-engagement news organizations into fully independent non-profits that are funded by a pool of income from the infotainment industry for the right to continue delivering low-value, high-engagement infotainment, rather than intermixing the two.

We absolutely do, and I think there is a demand for it, just not sure how it would ever get funded because the investors would always want the higher return the anger-tainment style would bring. I try to focus on individual / independent journalism when available. I'm just starting to (audio)read Woodward's new book, and it seems pretty fair so far. I thought his last book seemed fair also. The difference of the new book is quite stark compared to the media's take on it recently.

I remember early in his presidency, watching a Trump speech. A short while later I saw news coverage on that same speech and it was like they weren't even talking about the same event.