> The problem is that people now assume that Washington Post and Breitbart operate on similar editorial standards. I'm afraid the WaPo have themselves to blame

> The problem is that people now assume that Washington Post and Breitbart operate on similar editorial standards. I'm afraid the WaPo have themselves to blame for this. In the early 2000s they (and the NYT, and CNN) bet the credibility of their paper on yellowcake, Curveball, and Bush's 16 Words. And they believed lies because they were being told by people in respectable positions, and they dutifully forwarded them on. When they were proven wrong, they responded with a mix of doubling down; claiming that while they were wrong, no one could have known better; and publishing retractions buried in the back pages. That doesn't make places like Breitbart credible, but it does make the WaPo (etc) incredible. So alternative/mainstream can absolutely not be the dividing line for judging credibility. You have to judge outlets (and articles) individually.