Personally, I think this is a good thing, because the more blatant aspect of the propaganda coming out of these outlets will inspire and frighten the people on the other side -- inspiring competitive voices.
We've operated in a world where influence is more subtle and it was easy to pretend that the news was unbiased. It wasn't, especially at the local level. The reporting wasn't propaganda, but the editorial board directs the reporters -- and the juiciest news is always the stuff that isn't in the paper, or is buried in section Z somewhere.
One of my relatives was a cabinet-level official in a mid-sized city in the 80s and 90s, when a hotshot reporter drove a Porsche. Unless it was a personal scandal affecting the Mayor, or people were marching in the streets, my relative could either make a phone call or have his boss make a phone call and kill/neuter a story.
If you look at news in the American Revolutionary era through the Civil War, it was big mess of different news outlets with very well defined biases. It's different than the late 20th century model of Woodward and Bernstein in the paper and a fatherly figure with good hair on TV, but it worked and will work again.
... and both the editorial board and reporters select how to cover the news.
Some of my relatives were active on a significant political issue in the 80s and 90s, holding state-level positions in a well-known organization. As a teen, I would occasionally attend rallies, protests, etc. (sometimes with counter-rallies/protests across the street) and watch from a distance, and then I'd watch the news coverage that evening. The camera always seemed to fall on awkwardly dressed senior citizens from our side, ignoring our speakers who were often young professional women who were excellent public speakers, and ignoring the large and diverse crowd. And the camera never showed the guys on the other side making threatening remarks (though I know they got those remarks on film); they'd instead seek comment from a lawyer in their office to give a calm presentation of that side. So even though they covered the event, the coverage gave the impression that one side was professional and well-spoken while the other was out of touch and weird, which was exactly the opposite of the impression I got from being there.
I was once filmed for a documentary (on migrant workers) made for BBC and I was quoted saying something like "This newspaper used to be full of job ads" - they cut off the ending of my sentence: "now it is all in the internet". Plus starting the interview with my daughter crying - while in fact she was mostly quiet during the 3 hours filming - they cut the moment that she did cry and put it at the start of the interview to set up the emotional tone.
I understand that they did this to make a 'story' out of it, it was not really malicious - but I was surprised to see such a blatant manipulation done in a BBC documentary.
I intentionally left it out because the important point is that the coverage was completely non-representative. I have other friends who have told me similar stories about other issues, sometimes even on opposite sides (in different cities or with different channels.) I don't want that point to get lost based on what any given HN'er thinks about the specific issue in question.
We've operated in a world where influence is more subtle and it was easy to pretend that the news was unbiased. It wasn't, especially at the local level. The reporting wasn't propaganda, but the editorial board directs the reporters -- and the juiciest news is always the stuff that isn't in the paper, or is buried in section Z somewhere.
One of my relatives was a cabinet-level official in a mid-sized city in the 80s and 90s, when a hotshot reporter drove a Porsche. Unless it was a personal scandal affecting the Mayor, or people were marching in the streets, my relative could either make a phone call or have his boss make a phone call and kill/neuter a story.
If you look at news in the American Revolutionary era through the Civil War, it was big mess of different news outlets with very well defined biases. It's different than the late 20th century model of Woodward and Bernstein in the paper and a fatherly figure with good hair on TV, but it worked and will work again.