A while ago I got in an argument with some relatives.

Several of us were on the same text message thread when one posted something tentatively hopeful about Covid treatments.  Another one tore into her for believing Fox News, whence the article originated.

OP and I were a little taken aback.  This was supposed to be a light, if a dim one, in the darkness; why was it relevant to attack us for "trusting" a news source they didn't like?

I'd been quiet for a while but tired of it quickly and called for moderation:  I pointed out that Fox has no monopoly on error (which is a little weaker than my personal position, but that was part of my point), and I hear enough ignorant back-and-forth at work, so could they please not include me in the conversation?

*bam* Links to MSM articles allegedly exposing Fox News in barefaced lies.

Dude:  I just got done saying I don't really trust anybody.  How do you think it makes you look when you get even more strident while trying to bring more evidence to the table that one side is dishonest, but it all comes from the other side?  

I don't need one more person telling me some of the "news" I take in is disinformation.  I take it in order to compare with the stuff that many people like my relatives appear to swallow whole.

It's difficult to walk the line in the middle; easier it is, to take a side, accept it wholesale, and then only let yourself see enough of the opposition's arguments to further convince yourself that they're still just making things up.

Things have been getting crazier lately so I wonder if we're getting close to a point where the MSM superfans aren't going to be able to explain away the cognitive dissonance between the beliefs they still strongly hold and the narratives they're told that change more quickly than their minds. 

I was listening to someone or other's channel on YouTube more recently (and this really isn't changing the subject), someone who I think is a little Left but mostly libertarian except on a few social issues, and very much capable of being fair to and having civilized discussions with conservatives.  She made a point that erenow I had not realized needed to be put so succinctly into words:

Conservative news and progressive news, whatever you think of them, are in the business of polarizing their viewers. 

Fox News might have been created not really as a lone voice in the wilderness to give succor to lonely conservatives, but moreso to provide merely a dramatic foil to CNN and MSNBC.  Which is not to criticize the on-air personalities (although a few self proclaimed Catholics could try a little harder to be orthodox before being conservative) as much as the top level executives who are all politically inbred.

Look at how the summer 2020 riots were covered.  In broad strokes:  Fox showed pasty young white people wearing black as-good-as-uniforms causing most of the damage and didn't shy away from black people burning down black neighborhoods, blaming Antifa and cultural problems in the black community itself; CNN & Friends showed peaceful protests and white people dressed in civvies causing problems, and blamed what they deemed conservative racists.  I'm sorry I come off as biased here but I tried to avoid getting sucked in and since I don't have TV at home I was rather at the mercy of the viewing preferences of some of my social associates.

The point is that neither side is really interested in telling the whole truth.  Maybe some individuals are, maybe they're not all drinking their own Kool-Aid.

What they're interested in doing is taking a page out of Bob Lutz's book (I mean specifically Guts, which is worth a read for his business anecdotes, but I'm also speaking generally).  Lutz believed--and I think he's right--that you'll have a healthier customer base if you put out product that is polarizing.  It won't much affect people who already love or hate your work, but it will motivate people who are on the fence; you'll drive a few of those folks away, but you'll get commitment from others who might have gone elsewhere, and that's the proverbial bird in the hand.

The problem is that news isn't a product.  Okay, in a sense it is--you or advertisers pay for an information service--but when it's this processed, it may not really be facts and analysis anymore, which is what they claim to be selling.

Also, to bring this back to the YouTuber's point, a polarized people is a divided people.  I can throw in a quote or platitude about hanging separately or houses divided against themselves.  But in the end, the highest level people with the most money and the least publicity at Fox will greet their equals at CNN and congratulate each other for keeping the populace too fragmented and off balance to really rise up and make a substantive difference.

It's not all about social engineering and tinfoil hat territory.  But it does help explain why stupid shit persists instead of winning a social Darwin Award.