Member when news organizations fact checked themselves? Ah yes, the good old days of the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine]Fairness Doctrine,[/url] back before President Reagan, in his infinite wisdom, allowed it to be repealed. Then we've got Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell discussing how big business needs to start targeting and undermining liberals, to make them the enemy. "The memo called for corporate America to become more aggressive in molding society's thinking about business, government, politics and law in the US. " Fast forward to the rise of the modern Republican party (a stark contrast to its older iteration, Eisenhower would be rolling in his grave) and the entire political discussion tracking right thanks to popular talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh. Ronald Reagan steps up and repeals the Fairness Doctrine, meaning that broadcast license holders were no longer required to promote stories relevant to the public interest, and America takes a step back from being informed. Then, in 1996 President Bill Clinton passes the Telecommunications Act, which further deregulated the corporate media and paved the way for media monopolies. Followed by the personal attack rule which required cable/broadcast television and radio to notify any person or group who was personally attacked on air within a week and offer them a chance to respond on air. And the political editorial rule required cable/broadcast television and radio which endorsed certain political candidates to allow unendorsed candidates an opportunity to respond. Those FCC rules were repealed in 2000. Today 90% of America's major media companies are owned by just six corporations. Over the past thirty years we have so deregulated the media landscape that not only are we no longer getting a variety of voices and perspectives, but we've also got a large segment of the population who are painfully uninformed and misinformed. Now Fox news is the most watched cable news network in the United States and Donald Trump, the least qualified, least experienced man to win a major party nomination, is on his way to the White House. Paul Ryan is discussing rolling back Medicare to make way for corporate options, every Republican wants tax cuts for the rich paid for with benefits cuts to the poor, and the truth so ignored that some Republican voters can't even recognize it. Roger Ailes put the GOP on TV, Justice Lewis Powell succeeded in pushing the pro-corporate/anti-liberal agenda, and now folks earning the minimum wage are voting against raising the minimum wage because "job creators, dirty liberals, welfare queens!" Hell, President Obama said it best: "The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican,", except ask any Fox news viewer and he'll tell you that Obama is the most liberal, progressive, socialist President America has ever had. It bears mentioning that Fox news viewers and talk radio listeners are consistently the most misinformed people in the country. http://www.businessinsider.com/study-watching-fox-news-makes-you-less-informed-than-watching-no-news-at-all-2012-5 http://www.alternet.org/media/science-fox-news-why-its-viewers-are-most-misinformed https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/09/these-charts-showing-what-republican-voters-believe-about-the-2016-election-are-depressing-and-telling/?utm_term=.6dc4dc7b440d The lies and misinformation haven't just taken a direct toll on the voters though, it's also had the unintended consequence of creating mistrust of facts themselves. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/its-not-the-economy-stupid/511634/ https://youtu.be/lkSGcBtvhnw this is a town hall Bernie Sanders had with Trump supporters. Fox news and talk radio are, plainly and simply, propaganda. They aren't news networks, they're infomercials. "Nine out of ten doctors prefer Camels! One out of ten doctors is a dirty godless liberal who wants to take away your freedom to smoke refreshing, reenergizing Camel cigarettes." Is electing Donald Trump on the good word of Sean Hannity that different from picking up a pack of smokes because nine out of ten doctors like the brand? Now all the triggered people will start crying about the biased liberal media as though it diminishes anything above. You are absolutely correct the MSM is now more clickbait than substance, it's all about getting traffic not giving the truth, but the narrative that's been created by the GOP and pushed on multiple fronts for decades, to the point now where it's all the some generations know, is unparalleled.