> I felt as though in the 90s CNN legitimately was a good news source.

Nope. They were the original cheerleaders of modern militarism, from the first Persian Gulf War, which they turned into an infotainment spectacle devoid of any serious critical analysis, to their promotion of NAFTA and neo-liberalism. This idea that things were better in the past is a form of rosy retrospection and nostalgia. Things weren’t better, they just hid the bullshit under thicker layers of opaqueness. And I say this as a progressive liberal who has always hated CNN and despises Fox.