The source of the problem is all the terrible leaders, whether they be the media, politicians, etc. You've focused solely on the "media", but a large part of th

The source of the problem is all the terrible leaders, whether they be the media, politicians, etc. You've focused solely on the "media", but a large part of the anti-science tribalism flowed from the infantile president trying to point the finger at anyone else, rather than accepting the existence of and dealing with the problem. When that much nonsense is being pumped into the zeitgeist, priors get massively screwed up - anything resembling the nonsense is dubious, so anything opposing the nonsense is duvious, and so on. Also it's not particularly appropriate to use the label "conservative" for those trying to buck societal institutions. The actually conservative position was to follow public health advice.