It has literally been decades since the legacy news media did journalism in any recognizable form. Yes, one occasionally saw good investigative pieces from WashPo or NYT, but that has not been their main business for a long time. These days, their main business is click-baiting, just like the rest of the Internet.
Click-baiting is the opposite of journalism. With journalism, the goal is truth, facts, and efficient communication. The headline encapsulates the essence of the story. The first paragraph provides the essential information, and subsequent paragraphs fill in details for those who have the time or interest to dive deeper.
With click-baiting, the goal is to get the reader's attention long enough for them to see your ads. The essential information is buried deep in the article, often requiring one to click through multiple pages, all for the purpose of exposing more ads.
The legacy media was provided special rights and protections in our system because the founders expected them to be the ultimate guardrail -- sunlight being the best disinfectant. They even referred to this as "the fourth estate", effectively being checks and balances on the official branches of government. None of this exists anymore, at least not with the legacy media.
Having said all that, we should not forget that we would almost certainly been at a different place today if Merrick Garland had not stalled the process for a full 18 months. Many on our side defended his glacial pace as being "deliberate", assuring us that there was plenty of time to bring Trump and his fellow criminals to account before the election. The fact is that Garland cost us half the available time, and Trump was able to run out the clock. Historians should not report this sad era without giving prominent attention to the role that Garland singularly played.
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