"Donald Trump was returned to power by the most badly informed electorate in modern American history."

[nmmi]

21. ⚠️ ARCHIVE.IS LINK , a couple paragraphs, and more from Amanda Marcotte at salon.com

Philadelphia Inquirer piece in the OP:
https://archive.is/NFeTA#selection-673.0-677.118

2024’s other big loser? The mainstream media. Is there any path forward?
As an electorate besieged by disinformation turned to Trump, trust in traditional media has imploded. What comes next?

This very much jibes with where voters get their news (https://archive.is/o/NFeTA/https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/biden-voters-low-information-trump-red-lobster-rigged-polls-20240521.html ). An NBC News survey back in May ( https://archive.is/o/NFeTA/https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24614251-240126-nbc-april-2024-poll-4-26-2024-release WHICH MORPHS INTO https://archive.is/pg5rO [1] -nmmi) — when Biden was still the Democrats’ deeply troubled candidate — found nonetheless that he led by landslide proportions among the shrinking number of Americans who still read a newspaper, with a 70-21% lead ((it's more than just reading a newspaper - see below -nmmi)).

The now-president-elect, according to that NBC survey, posted his biggest margin of 53-27% among voters who don’t follow any news.
... That dovetails with the survey ( https://archive.is/o/NFeTA/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/trump-harris-policy-quiz/ ) in which voters — when blindly given a choice between Trump’s policy agenda and Harris’ proposals — went strongly for the ideas of the Democrat who would lose.

[1] This link doesn't work for me. But from The Week 11/22/24 p. 12, Amanda Marcotte at salon.com wrote (I added the spacing, and emphasis -nmmi):

When given an explicit choice, most Americans actually prefer Democratic policies on health care, abortion, wages, family leave, taxation, and the economy.

Polls from earlier this year, in fact found that people "who consume news from journalistic outlets -- newspapers, network news programs, and news websites -- overwhelmingly planned to vote for the Democratic candidate"

But roughly half the country now consumes "an all-propaganda media diet" from Fox News, Tik Tok, Instagram, X, right-wing podcasts, and what their MAGAfied friends and family tell them. These sources immerse their audiences in a separate reality of misinformation, resentment, and conspiracy theories in which vaccines are dangerous, scientists are evil, America is a hellhole overrun by criminals and vicious migrants, Ukraine isn't worth saving, and the economy is in the toilet. ...