Nobody trusts the media. So people will believe what they want. There’s no source of truth
Both sides have "news" outlets which are agenda based and profit motivated. And truth doesn't usually sell as well. That's a problem. You can't even trust the fact checker sources as they say "out of context" or "partially true" when it's a fact against their agenda/team. Even the fact checking sites are super biased.
If you align with a side, you attach your identity to it like Paul Graham wrote about with Keep Your Identity Small [1]. People don't like their identity criticized, or want to believe they may be wrong, so they believe what they want and create their own distorted bubble.
My buddy always said "we're told to not talk about religion or politics. Probably the 2 most powerful and influential topics that exist". Now people have started talking about them, but not in a productive fashion.
If you believe someone on the other side is bad based on their views, you can't have a dialogue. This is the greatest tragedy. Disowning family members and friends over their views because you concluded they must be bad people?
Very few people on either side are actually bad. They just have a different experience, they've aligned their identity and team, and there's a ton of forces at play (ex: media, special interests, etc) to keep that divisiveness going.
The problem with the both sides argument is that one side is disproportionately loose with the truth and constantly resorting to not just half-truths, but complete fabrications.
Without good faith there will be no useful dialogue.
So maybe one side fabricates more and one side withholds more. Two ways to be scandalous. They are both profit driven and aren't truthful any way you slice it. They are not trustworthy with news and cannot be relied upon to be objective. Even the shows positioned as news are super biased and full of opinions.
I understand they are entitled to have opinionated segments with personalities. That's fine.
But we have regulations around what is Champagne or Bourbon. And you need a license to cut hair. Maybe anything dubbed "news" should have a standard?
To be fair, they probably shouldn't be counted in that regard, but it is how they have branded themselves.
Big chunks of the media decided a long time ago that they could make money by just pandering to angry people, and here we are.
And then social media decided to cut out the cost of producing content, and just put angry people in a cage together.
Like it or not, we haven't exactly done a great job at exposing primary sources to everyone. Until that can happen, media outlets who pay for boots on the ground will still have a degree of intutively granted credibility. Once everyone knows how to access it at will (and can be bothered to) we may see some better measurement on the reliabilitt of information sources.