I always find it fun to look at the etymology of words. The word propaganda has it's roots in Latin--propagare, meaning to spread or disseminate. In Spanish, the word propaganda can be used to describe advertisements.

Journalism today seems to be less about dissecting a story and looking at it from different angles, and more about using a story to bolster some kind of narrative, often political. I'm not sure what has caused this shift, but I would imagine it has something to do with financial incentives combined with the rate at which stories can be produced and disseminated.

Not sure how we fix this and get back to popular news being more boring and less tabloid, like Reuters or Wall Street Journal (news column, not opinion). I imagine it will require education starting at an early age, teaching people how to consume media with a critical eye, and engage in discourse in a civil manner. With hope, this will create a financial incentive for journalists to publish more objective stories.