Both CNN and FOX - talking about the news departments, not opinion talk shows - do apply editorial standards. Sometimes better than other times, but you see it happening all the time. CNN and the NYT are certainly not pro-Trump, but in 2016, they couldn’t take their eyes off him, because he’s very good at being the center of attention. FOX probably would have preferred to appease its audience, whether talking about their decision to pass on the Hunter laptop stories or to call the election for Biden. We will shortly know how much market share that will cost them.

But they all have to wrestle with these things. If you ask me, the NYT came to the wrong conclusion about the Tom Cotton editorial that caused so much internal controversy there. He’s a senator, a relevant public figure, so their editorial page should be open to his views and to views refuting them. They seem to have concluded otherwise, and while I disagree with that, they did have to wrestle with the issue.

You’re unlikely to see such ethical editorial struggles at OAN or Breitbart or Newsmax. And we should always take motive into account - when your internet devices, any of them, are beeping things at you, the purpose is not to deliver truth or even to entertain. The purpose is to suck you in, and if that results in truth or entertainment, that’s more accident than intent.

There are no easy answers to this, but IMO it is an urgent problem. Probably the most urgent, because solving anything else will be impossible until we address this.