News channels do not broadcast 24 hours of news. The majority of programming are personalities, opinions and "recaps." The actual news comes on in hour-long chunks once early in the morning, mid-day and at primetime.
I'm not going to say my news is perfect, but it's from a non-commercial / nonpartisan organization, they get money from the government / taxes (which is less than ideal, but their independence is codified I believe), etc. It sticks to the news, professional-like.
Switch to the commercial channels (we thankfully don't have major 24 hour news channels) and the news on there has much more er, Personalities, quirkiness, some silly background news, and a weatherman that travels the country to visit events and petting zoos and shit.
The trick is paying attention long enough to determine if sources stay consistent, issue proper corrections & retractions, are intellectually honest, etc.
Or if the purveyors are just hacking ratings, for more ad revenue.
In the 80s, I eschewed a career in broadcast media. I loved the gear, doing creative stuff, working in the studio. But absolutely hated the business. "If it bleeds, it leads."
We've been complaining about outrage engines since the beginning. Social media just made things much much worse.
State-funded media has it's own problems but at least there's some accountability which is effectively nonexistent for large media companies. As long as the free market rewards sensationalism, there will be profit driven "journalism." Ultimately, the general populace needs to be educated on the veracity of news in the digital age; how to spot a misleading headline, and how to corroborate actual expository works.
