Mainstream news sources are mostly politically leaning towards the left and their counterparts on the right are often just reacting to the left. So you get a kind of he said, she said noise.

"The morality of journalists (a loose term these days) have only themselves to blame for the uptick in animosity. Journalism as an industry lacks integrity yet journalist still fancy themselves as noble souls and herdsmen of truth. The whole industry is incredibly pretentious. Now every hipster with a MacBook and a WordPress account is a journalist ranting about integrity. Integrity? Hipsters do love irony. Poorly written dredge, injected with biased opinions, financed by advertisers, and sourced on Twitter. Why should we be surprised journalists don’t want their dirt available for public consumption; why jeopardize the very profitable relationships these “news” outlets have established that ensure journalists are in the pocket of advertisers. There is a lot of money to be made, just not by reporting news."

• Jordan Colaruotolo · System Security and Administration Specialist at SEC & DOJ Contractor

............................

There is so much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated it keeps us in touch with ignorance of the community. The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. —Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

............................

"I know the British press is very attached to the lobby system. It lets the journalists and the politicians feel proud of their traditional freedoms while giving the reader as much of the truth as they think is good for him." — Tom Stoppard, Mageeba, Act II

............................

The decline in literature indicates a decline in the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency. - Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von
............................

“You don't realize how little accuracy there is in network TV reporting until they cover a story in your hometown.”―Robert Brault
............................

One sign of good journalism is that it questions the prevailing narrative. Common knowledge is mostly wrong because it tends to drift downstream towards simplistic narratives that are emotionally appealing. That is why whenever a topic about which you have deep knowledge is portrayed in the popular culture it always seems simplistic to the point of being wrong, full of tropes and common misconceptions.

An investigative journalist, however, should dig beneath the surface. They should talk to experts, especially those who have reason to doubt the narrative, and find out what the consensus of expert opinion is. They could also try to explain the narrative – why do people believe X when experts say Y?