Most “journalism” these days is done from a desk. The Migrants eating Cats story for example — the national networks ran statements from certain local officials but didn’t actually go there and interview or investigate directly. They relied upon statements from public officials to refute the story. (Not saying it was a true or false story, but the major “news” networks certainly didn’t spend much, if any, time there — they didn’t investigate anything; they reported what public officials said.)

Many stories might as well be AI: feed into it something Trump said, then the algorithm creates a story with lots of “without evidence” qualifiers and then call it a day.

The media rarely investigates anything — they report on what others investigate or choose not to investigate and that’s printed as fact depending on who made the claim.