Again, think of scale and cost. Newspapers needed to be written, printed, and required a distribution network – all of which require money, time, and infrastructure. That doesn’t mean that they were perfect but they developed reputations and because they needed to pay those bills there was some moderating influence for not scaring off readers or advertisers — that’s not perfect but it’s why you had stories which only ran in tabloids because the owners of the bigger papers didn’t want to lose business or get sued (physical presence means assets at risk!) by someone they slandered. Governments often had rules about foreign ownership of media outlets, registration or permitting requirements for journalists, etc.

Again, I’m not saying that everything was perfect before but that the rules and norms from the past need to be adjusted for the present. The way we handled hundreds of television stations can’t scale to millions of websites or social media accounts, especially since you no longer have anchors like geographic proximity or business identities.