But look at why this has occurred. In 2000 there was still such a thing as journalistic integrity, in large part due to the fact that journalism was still well funded locally (both in newspapers and in television), although newspapers were beginning to die. Remember when your local TV news channel had their own foreign correspondents?

Between 2000 and 2010, the internet grew up and Big Tech began to take over the advertising segment. People stopped buying local newspapers as much, so fewer journalists were funded to do any kind of complex reporting. In 2010 the internet hadn't completely taken over video content, as bandwidth to the average home was only just getting to the level to sustain a couple of HD streams.

Between 2010 and 2022, the internet has now taken over virtually everything. Cable TV is dieing. Virtually everyone I know now consumes their content online, barring the elderly that don't know how to operate a tablet or phone. Local content no longer gets funded, but oh does fringe content get clicks! Software realizes, hey, we can sell ads on those clicks! Suddenly people engage in SEO and fringe content is now massively profitable. The sane voice of reason in the form of Walter Cronkrite is lost. Public discourse becomes more polarized than ever.

I think the blame for this lies in large part on Big Tech. Promoting content by optimizing for clicks is a very different selection criteria than a previously well established news editor (be it paper or TV) trying to do a good job while protecting their organization's reputation. Neural nets have no conscious voice in the back of their weights saying "hey, maybe that's a bad thing to promote".

The world is forever changed. For better or worse, there's no turning back from the world we have created.

> In 2000 there was still such a thing as journalistic integrity,

Nuts. The mainstream press has always shaded pro-conservative. Look at how preciously the mainstream media treated Trump. They rarely reported Trump accurately, often editing him for clarity. The mainstream press was and is extremely charitable to Trump.

They edited him to be innacurate. Like for example how they made it look like he supported white supremacy by cutting out the latter half of what he was saying where he said "I am not talking about white supremacists, they should be totally condemned"

Yeah! That one time, in Canada!

Got any reference I can use to look this up, because it smells fishy.

Whereas I lived through the first Trump admin as an adult, and I could see the difference between what was reported (which mostly made sense) and what Trump stated himself, which was stream-of-consciousness gibberish.

Don't try to gaslight anyone on this issue. The press cleaned up what Trump said, and reported the cleaned-up version. The worst thing they could have done was report Trump's exact words.