I think that "responsible news" and "responsible government" are two things that are achieved by societies by pure luck and cannot simply be willed into existen

I think that "responsible news" and "responsible government" are two things that are achieved by societies by pure luck and cannot simply be willed into existence. Given what's happened in the US with the emergence of the alt right I've been wracking my brain over ways we could safely accomplish free expression of ideas and I don't think it's possible. Either you allow for hate speech to be empowered and gain a megaphone or someone needs to be the decider on what is false. You don't actually need to kill off misinformed reporting or slanted reporting - you just need to censor reporting that is knowingly false and presenting non-facts as if they are facts - if you can kill that sort of information dead then I think society is able to sort out and prevent bubbles from forming around publications that choose to focus on certain stories - or that consistently frame stories to suit their agenda. I think that the stars aligned from about 95-2010 where all the news outlets were still afraid enough of the government that they mostly kept in line but the government didn't really have the resources to actually police things. Oh also, the Age of Reason was pretty darn irrational compared to today - don't let a fancy name and rose tinted glasses blind you to the faults of yesterday.