Depends on the news you read I guess, to me the word "slammed" is pretty commonplace in politics news-reporting and has been for a while (read: well before the modern take-down content that's so common to social media platforms).
Looking at Google Ngram, usage of "slams" started inflecting upwards in the early 90's and then even more strongly in the mid-2000's. [0] I wonder if that second increase represents the type of usage I had in mind.
(I looked at "slams" rather than "slammed" to try to avoid some of the other modern meanings, like being slammed with work.)
[0] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=slams&year_sta...
Could be, this is when social media was taking off and people chasing "viral" moments started to become a thing I guess.
I agree the difference is somewhat contextually nuanced, I had to check the usage of "slammed" as I know it to confirm my understood usage is a thing.