Loss of advertising revenue has compelled the MSM to up the ante on monetization of their opinions; which used to pass for “news.”
Without the drive to capture internet eyeballs the whole phenomenon of “click bait” wouldn’t exist, and fake news would be less pervasive and less hysterical.
Fake news wouldn’t disappear, we had plenty of it before AlGore invented the internet. I noted a few of the modern practitioners here, mentioning Walter Cronkite, Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, Dan Rather and Walter Duranty.
If the internet has accomplished nothing else, it has truncated the loop in which “journalists” get fired or resign for blatant lying. Of those mentioned above, it took quite a long time for them to be expelled from the fellowship.
Some never were. The NYT hasn’t given back Duranty’s 1932 Pulitzer. Dan Rather is still out there claiming he was right about Dubya’s service in the National Guard. Water Cronkite still invokes reverence among the naive.
OTOH, CNN’s Eric Lichtblau, Thomas Frank, and Lex Haris were fired or resigned within hours of their lies.
Thanks to Donald Trump for his assistance in provoking the MSM liars to self-identify. And thanks to AlGore for his invention, though that’s yet another fake news meme.
I’d also credit Google, since they’re the primary entity eating the MSM advertising revenue, but Google’s bias is even more pervasive and harmful than the MSM’s.