The argument is that if someone (government) doesn't fund and help maintain the old model of establishment media (with some left/right division) then the new economic forces will lead to its collapse. The framing being advanced here is that the collapse results in further left/right polarization as we move from objective news reporting towards self-rationalizing and subjective news analysis because that's what drives attention and clicks. This is a false framing in my opinion and only serves as a justification to protect establishment narratives using government money.
Instead I would suggest that: is that the collapse of current media leaves us with a polarization between establishment/non-establishment media narratives also. It's also possible to argue (but that's not my goal here) that non/establishment polarization is greater or more threatening (to who) then the left/right polarization.
The manifestation of this change is much more holistically represented in US politics by putting the typical voting blocs on a political compass map and plotting the line separating Rep/Dem for 2014 vs November 2020. Note that the shift is axial. I think this a more useful (productive) example than the proposed capitol riots (Jan6th) example or Antifa suggested by others. The axial shift is correlated with a different dimension of disagreement in the common zeitgeist.
So some questions worth asking are: - Is this ok? The days of yellow journalism DID have some of the highest literacy rates in the USA. - Are you ok with a system where the government gives out financing at will to journalists/media and you may have to take them to court to get a press pass? ...like Canada? - Were we ever really objective? Should we still strive to distinguish the objective from the subjective? - Not everyone learns these words in school. Some learn (incorrectly, in my opinion) that there's a moral connotation to it. How can we do better at this? - Is it worse to lose "objectivity" in reporting or to purport to to be when we really aren't?