How an Uncritical Media Helped Trump's Rise

Media's culpability in the rise of Trump is that they have spent the last 5-10 years squandering their reserves of trust with increasingly transparent and dishonest propaganda.

There are two important consequences. First, the most obvious is that since they've lost the trust of large segments of the audience, they have exceptionally limited their ability to influence those people no matter what. Trump won those people without a fight.

Second is talent atrophy. Since media has taken the trust of their readers for granted, ideology has replaced integrity. Image is still important, but trust is seen only as a function of ideological pandering. This means many of them have no idea what to do, even if people were inclined to believe them.

It would not have mattered one bit when the media decided to get critical. They have to rebuild trust first.