A handful of newspapers that controlled 95% of the information was much more of a "precision guided missile", in terms of ability to control information, than social media is today.
(That's not to say it's good today, it's terrifying, but at least it's possible to hear different voices, including voices on the ground)
people massively underestimate how insidious having millions of data points about a person is, these companies are literally modeling your behavior
You can see that by looking at more minor or fringe social media sites. Public "liking" is literally all it takes for people to degenerate into performativeness, sensationalism, grandstanding, misinformation, etc.
To associate contextual advertising based on large scale demographics and location with spying, lying, cheating and thieving at an individual level, is a great example of this in real life.
In the old days, the tabloids were obvious. The sensationalism was easy to identify and passive in its voice. They sat on the end caps of grocery stores, far away from the News. TV news was regulated and there was a strict ethics code in place. Today, all news is tabloid as they all chase attention. They have all become the Weekly World News and as a result, we have clowns and ignoramuses running things.
And people fell for it. They actually fell for it...and continue to fall for it.
That is why it's a cancer. Ad tech eats everything in its path and destroys everything good in the process.
When you cannot tell the difference between fact and fiction, you have lost the plot.
This is our key point of disagreement, not any of the rest
I strongly disagree that the "Real News" of yesterday was "good information" as I define that. It served the biases of the publishers and writers. It was sensationalist. It strongly censored and suppressed politically incorrect viewpoints, to a degree not seen today. The Overton Window was miniscule. The ethics codes were largely self-serving and inert against its major flaws.
It seems that you may be conflating journalism with news. They are not the same thing.
Curious wow old you are and where you grew up? When did you and where were you when you experienced this singular market bias.