I suspect such journalists have always existed and there's always been an appetite for bad journalism. Bad journalism certainly isn't new; for instance in the

I suspect such journalists have always existed and there's always been an appetite for bad journalism. Bad journalism certainly isn't new; for instance in the 19th century shitty newspapers started the Spanish-American War basically for shits and giggles. They were able to do that because much of the American public enthusiastically gobbled up the nonsense yellow journalists were publishing. I think many of the tools the tech industry has created in past years, social media and link aggregators using content recommendation systems, have thrown fuel into the dumpster fire. These tools and systems of incentives have facilitated and encouraged shitty journalism. When the tech industry itself is then the victim of this, it's sort of karmic justice. Hoisted by their own petard, as it were. But all to often the victims have nothing to do with the tech industry. Most victims are, as you say, private people; technology has made private people vulnerable to unscrupulous journalists in a way that seems historically unprecedented.