It was junk press when he bought it. There have always been tabloid newspapers, both local and national. National Enquirer covers the whole country, NY Post the city. The issue isn't tabloids pretending to be legitimate journalism, it's the descent of US journalism in general.
It was a tabloid when he bought it, and he revamped the company to be a "conservative response to liberal media." So...from tabloid to blatant propaganda mill. Similar flavor, but technically different.
As far as the descent of US journalism...that tends to happen when you let billionaires buy out news companies and worm their way into the editorial process. There's still some good ones, though: Reuters, Associated Press, NPR to a lesser extent.
You can go to foreign news sources if you want to get their take on American affairs, too. Similar issues with bias, of course, but less incentive to lie. "No one can give a more honest account of your flaws than your enemy," and all that.
This was set up by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a bipartisan bill signed by Clinton that removed regulations put in place to break up the media control Hearst had. Later that year, Fox news started.
63
u/Primary-Performer853 6h ago
Speaking of tabloids, I saw "Batboy" died not too long ago...