I actually think this has gotten worse in the past 10 years or so due to social media link sharing, because they realized, and this is purely speculation, that

I actually think this has gotten worse in the past 10 years or so due to social media link sharing, because they realized, and this is purely speculation, that if you have a very sensational extreme article in one direction it will get shared by both the people who vehemently agree and the people who think it's absolutely absurd rather than a "boring" article that people are less likely to act on, especially people from both sides of a debate.