[arpit]

I would say the public trust is not so much dying as actively being killed.

Also the word mainstream has lost its meaning. If that term is to apply based on audience size, sites like InfoWars were bigger than some of the traditional outlets.

The idea of leaving "mainstream" outlets to seek truth on sites like InfoWars is more about people just wanting to hear their biases and not really interested in news per se.

[chaostheory]

> I would say the public trust is not so much dying as actively being killed.

I feel that we agree aside from semantics. I still would choose dying over killed because it looks like a gradual year over year trend rather than a giant, sudden change.

> Also the word mainstream has lost its meaning.

To be clear, I wanted to differentiate sane & plausible media outlets from the fringe outlets like Infowars or upstarts like The Intercept

> The idea of leaving "mainstream" outlets to seek truth on sites like InfoWars is more about people just wanting to hear their biases and not really interested in news per se.

This was true in decades prior. However, it's starting to snowball with continued polarization of the both left and right, eventually resulting in political moderates being a minority. Isn't it strange that Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone are now covering stories on both COVID-19 and Wall Street? imo it's out of necessity because the media outlets, who traditionally cover these topics, refuse to cover the stories with the same depth.