The legacy media is still MUCH better in presenting facts compared to online and places like Fox and Newsmax who preach to their choir. Way too many people 'chose their facts' today. Fox, Newsmax etc have close to little journalistic integrity. They tell people what they want to hear, truth be dammed.
Five years ago I MIGHT have agreed with this.
Not anymore.
I'll grant there was a time what you're saying was certainly truer than today. I will even agree with you (I think, I don't want to presume to speak for you, but I've never found you irrational even when I disagreed) that a lot of the "but both sides" arguments used by the pro-Faux News crowd is largely nothing but Trumpian-style gaslighting (e.g. us so-called righties lying about 1/6 is the exact same thing as lefties mis-stating something in every single case).
And the thing I find quietly amusing is "chose their facts" as those there hasn't been a cottage industry about people finding "your truth", as though truth is NOT objective by the very same people who wish to suddenly insist it IS - but only when it involves Republicans/conservatives.
But here's what I'm trying to comprehend or nail down: when did this invisible line get crossed by the legacy media? Because you and I both know Katie Couric would NEVER have tried her infamous Sarah Palin interview with Barack Obama. Set aside the fact that Obama would undoubtedly have handled such an interview better, she never would have done it. Katie was a liberal who wanted Obama to win and decided - way back in 2008 - that her calling in life ceased to be an objective journalist (I'm granting the naive notion she ever was), and she was going to play the part of the crooked referee in a wrestling match and make sure her favorite won. And if anyone thinks that assessment (which I knew the moment I watched it) is harsh, just last year she said Obama owes her a big ash bouquet for that interview and mused the late Helen Thomas said she has "saved the country" with that interview.
So back in 2008, we had the ANCHOR OF THE CBS EVENING NEWS (you know, Cronkite's chair?) inserting herself into a Presidential election to make sure the candidate she liked won (or maybe to be more accurate, the one she hated lost). I'm not absolving Palin of the fact that perpetual mis-speakers Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush would have done better in that interview, and it helped frame the notion "she's not ready for this thing."
But she never would have done such an interview with Obama, using words that had multiple meanings (Palin even asked for what she meant about one because it had a different meaning in context) or disparaged the things she'd been appealing to ("other than ABC, what are your qualifications") to accomplish her self-appointed mission.
And - just speaking theoretically - if anyone wants to say it began with her, maybe explain to us why her predecessor in the same chair decided to insert himself into the 2004 election with a concocted controversy over fake National Guard documents. And this after he inserted himself into the 1988 election and tried to take out the Republican front-runner. (At least this attempt engendered some outrage even on the left, so there's been a clear decline).
Wanna call out Fox News, Newsmax, I'm there with ya.
I'm there with anybody on that.
www.nbcnews.com
