Same here on the forum thing. It's kinda sad that so many take pride in spreading disinformation just to boost their own delicate egos. This is likely my biggest problem with the proliferation of these formats in general. There's far too many crazies out there who were once ignored, yet now find so many platforms from which they can be heard. Everyone is entitled to free speech, of course, but it's so difficult to discern what's true and what's not with all the inane chatter, or how credible any one source may be.
The MSM exasperates this problem, too ... having gone from disseminating actual news, to putting a political spin on almost all their stories. It's made it almost impossible to find the truth behind anything.
MSM is entertainment, they no longer have to abide by such strict regulations as they once were, and the effects have only festered since then. Interestingly this, along with the internet has brought about the freelance journalist and smaller sites. But they suffer from the lack of credentials, they may be doing their best to be truthful and informative. Or they could be our dear old friend Amalek with a fake mustache. You just never know.
I think much of it is down to budgets, journalism was a skilled profession but the bottom dropped out of it with the rise of the internet. Now many MSM outlets report what people are saying on Twitter because it's cheaper than doing actual journalism.
I found it quite fascinating as it kind of vindicated what I've seen first hand on certain other forum boards. That sucks about the pay wall, I had no trouble with it on my phone. Thanks for finding that archive.