No, they grew up in a time when media distortion was less likely to be revealed because the major media was narrower and it's ideological biases more consistent, and voices outside the major media had major barriers to reaching any substantial audience.
People and media will always have a viewpoint that distorts their objectivity. That is just fact of live and not necessarily bad thing as long as it's honest belief. Media used to be more reliable and truthful in the past with the normal distortions that people had. Mainstream media is still like this. Their problem is the lack of money and time that lowers their ability to do original reporting and check facts. They are the victims of dishonest influencing, not the originators. Fox News is the only major mainstream media source that has completely turned news into dishonest influencing operation.
Today the distortions are the same but there is significant increase in intentional influencing with data and arguments that those who propagate them don't believe. Using the same talking point to argue for and against issues is good example of this.
Shady figures like Christopher Blair just sit in their homes and push out (non-mainstream viewpoints) disinformation they know is false.
In addition, a huge difference between traditional media, and modern "fake news" is accountability.
As biased as they can be, traditional articles always come with an author name, and published or run under the responsibility of the media themselves.
They can, and often do, give a specific story a slant which supports their point of view or agenda, but they really cannot outright lie, since they would be called out or even be subject to legal action:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/23/sicilian-journ...
"Fake News" have no traceable source, no attributable author, no accountability.
Seriously? Pretty much all major networks have been caught making stuff up. CNN has been caught giving debate questions ahead of time to their pet candidate.
CNN's statement:
>"On October 14th, CNN accepted Donna Brazile's resignation as a CNN contributor. (Her deal had previously been suspended in July when she became the interim head of the DNC.) CNN never gave Brazile access to any questions, prep material, attendee list, background information or meetings in advance of a town hall or debate. We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor."
When mainstream media catches individual journos making stuff up they get fired as it should be. Brazile was not even a journalist or employee. She was running the campaign.
With Brazile, yes, they "accepted her resignation" - not even fired. With other journos, they only fired them after they were caught making stuff up by outsiders. With yet another group, talking heads at CNN make stuff up on a regular basis, but yet they are there because they are "opinion" talking heads. Not just CNN - same with all the other news orgs.
Given Donna Brazile's past and her obvious partisanship, she should have never been allowed to work at CNN to begin with. If they want to be perceived as neutral and fair, that is. That's like hiring Eric Trump to do commentary, while his dad is running for office.
To me, it's ideas like this that perpetuate the problem. It clings to the idea that journalists and journalism - at least that which is sold via mainstream media channels - are capable of some kind of pristine objectivity. They aren't. It is much healthier in my opinion to understand that news is not special within its medium. It's entertainment like everything on every other channel. It's somewhat less fictional obviously, but the entertainment motive is what lies behind it.
I would suggest instead that Fox News was the first major mainstream media source that dropped the pretensions and openly did what "news" has been doing since Walter Kronkite but with an equal and opposite bias. And to that extent, it has had a beneficial effect on society: we now know to watch carefully what a given journalist decides to report on and what they don't and we work harder to extract facts, if there are any, from the pre-determined narratives they are wrapped in. Whether purposely or not, they made news look like a joke. And we are smarter now because of it.
they double down.
> are capable of some kind of pristine objectivity.
My point was that media bias is not same as not being untruthful. Fox News stands alone in the mainstream media in their network level intentionally false reporting.
That's is absolutely untrue. The reason you think that is because your pre-existing bias disagrees with them.
CNN, HuffingtonPost, Washington Post, etc, etc, etc do the exact same thing, from the other side.
Here's a helpful list: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/left/
Which sites that you read are on there?
I've made a conscious decision to disbelieve any news unless it came from a site on this list: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/center/
I only news sources not on that list for entertainment.
The distinction was subject of my comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI
It's also pretty prevalent on the radio, and has a fair few historical precedents from before journalism saw credibility as an important thing to keep in mind (yellow journalism et all).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_Unit...
The Mail's website is also the most visited English language news site in the world.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150418010133/http://www.ft.com...
Depressing? Certainly. Puts a damper on the idea that most people got their news from realiable sources before the internet? Yep.
Back farther in the past, the many competing newspapers were very partisan. Perhaps we're just back to that situation.
Are you sure? How can you tell?
I guess today's CNN and their much more pronounced left-wing orientation is just a response to the right-leaning stuff from Fox? Or it just seems more left-wing now in comparison.
That, and even if journalists are actively attempting to avoid bias the faster news cycle simply leaves them less time for polish. Thus, more and more stories are the equivalent of first or second drafts.
As the OP said, a decade ago you could make that claim. They were much more "news". Now their rating have been in the toilet for years, so they've gone to extremes to gain viewership.
You are right, though -- it took a lot of work to get content to a large audience. That reduced the number of malicious agents who could and the speed with which they could successfully gain broad influence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst
While I agree that journalism is in crisis, this isn't the first time. While Hearst was famous for yellow journalism, his papers weren't the only ones, and often the emotional sensationalism was intended to support a particular candidate (or denounce their opponent).
That being said, mainstream media do tend to care about their reputation, same reason the best liars tend to be careful about what/when to lie.