One thing's for sure, the U.S. news media has been weakened beyond recognition. No journalist knows what the hell is going on with Mitch McConnell. No journalist had any clue that Lindsey Graham was sick. The news outlets were so completely taken off guard that they have nothing to write in their reports about Graham. All they can offer is one-paragraph summaries of a press release from Graham's people.
Journalists are being laid off all over the country. News outlets are being gobbled up by billionaires who expect their outlets to promote their personal agendas. Outlets are trying to replace journalists with LLMs. Long gone are the days when an owner like Katherine Graham would give journalists free reign (and budget) to follow any lead, no matter where it lead.
Part of fixing the problem is being clear about it. It's unhelpful to talk about the weakness of journalism in the country as if the trouble came from the outside.
Journalists did this to themselves through decades of hewing to norms that undermined their profession.
Promoting billionaires' personal agendas vs promoting their own personal agendas... the public doesn't much care WHOSE agenda is being promoted, they turn away either way, and unfortunately that's where the institutions went.
This is just the all-too-predictable result of the generational trend that shows no sign of breaking.
