This. Mainstream journalism has to regain credibility. The first step down that road is producing credible journalism, a difficult but necessary cost the indu

This. Mainstream journalism has to regain credibility. The first step down that road is producing credible journalism, a difficult but necessary cost the industry is going to need to swallow if it expects to survive. The alternatives are an expansion of thought censorship from the mainstream networks to its bubbling alternative competitors. I understand the urge to misrepresent the world to garner public support. I really do. But nature abhors a vacuum. When the information available to the public is obviously compromised it will be filled by something or someone else. The response to that isn't to censor alternatives and continue the misreporting. The solution is to recede from propagandistic instincts, and provide the kind of analysis you want to be recorded in history books for providing to democratic deliberation. If people really understand what's at stake in issues, and what powers, people and industries has what stake where, and when they understand issues to the point where they can make discernible political decisions - be they about representation or directly on issues - rather than being emotionally coerced at scale by every media platform above water; then, and only then, will the "information war" the State Department has been waging will really be won. It won't be won by the State Department, but by the people. And it will be for the people and by the people. Truly: the alternative to this is to continue down this folly road of doctrinal misrepresentation of the world to the American people, and to play whack-a-mole with every narrative that challenges the useless and ill-predictive emotional appeal whose vacuum is being challenged. (I speak as an American about my country).