There's an argument to be made that news media in the 20th century was focused on delivering facts, and that objective journalism as we knew it then is dead today. This shift was accelerated by the 24-hour news cycle and eventually the internet, where the media was incentivized by attention-grabbing headlines, advertising profits and private investors. When journalism was alive, opinions were sectioned off and known as editorials, and the public could assume that everything else was factual information. There's no such distinction today.

Teaching critical thinking is important, but let's not ignore the deeply rooted problems of both advertising and the modern news media.

The Spanish-American War was literally caused by journalists. It's always been an arm of propaganda. You're seeing this through rose-tinted glasses.

I'm not familiar with that part of history, but I think you're mistaking and vastly overblowing the role of "yellow" journalism in that case.

Scandal and satire have been a part of MSM for a long time, but it was very clear where the line is drawn that separates it from objective journalism. While corporate and political influence existed to an extent, objectivity was seen as sacred.

If you don't see a difference between news reporting from 40 or 50 years ago and today, I don't know what to tell you.

It was still less effective globally because you couldn't reach a few billion people 24/7 at the click of a button.

And it was more effective locally because a limited selection if newspapers and TV channels was all you had access to until the Internet came along.

> If our population is dumb

You cannot out-smart emotional manipulation. Most people who get caught up in cults believe they are too smart to fall for a cult.

> Does the news media not "psychologically manipulate people to get them to vote or think a certain way?" By your logic, we shouldn't just ban ads, we should ban most journalism and news websites, as they are all also propaganda arms to promote different ideologies.

You introduced a straw man argument to argue against. Journalists are subject to norms, pressures, and factcheckers that ads aren’t. Politicians spend big on ads that are deliberately misleading. The oversite that exists either isn’t enforced or is incredibly weak.

One way to consider ad personalization is: should someone grow richer if they know there is trauma in your life? If your friend dies, if you and your partner miscarry, if you were fired from work. Who should be allowed to profit from these events and why?