Ive talked a lot about this over the last few years.
You can split it into two eras fairly neatly.
But both are ultimately about chasing venue.
The 1st Era I'll call the News of the World Era as it sums it up well. Journalists looking for the best scope by any means necessary to get it.
The 2nd Era I'll call the click bait era. Again fairly self explanatory
Both are about how politics became entertainment.
The latter is how this has driven politics itself to the extremes with moderate views unwittingly deplatformed as 'boring'.
Politics is best for the country and public when it's boring as fuck. The drama and personality shit, is a circus.
Good governance is about understanding the unintended consequences of your flag ship policies and mitigating for this rather than trying to silence dissent.
Thats where I take issue with the whole women's right / trans thing.
Its not about identifying and finding resolutions to problems. It's about cancelling and screaming bigot in people's faces despite of obvious failures to balance needs and protect particularly vulnerable groups.
Overall its a departure from accountability. Proper journalism which requires looking at the details and reviewing for errors doesn't exist anymore. Partly because people don't want to read the court reports in the local news like they used to. Partly because its dull and we have Netflix for drama now, not your neighbour down the road and what she got fined for last week or who married who in the classified births, marriages and deaths. Partly because it's labour intensive and expensive and the readership for it is low even though an issue might be really important for a large number of people.
We have had a shift from fact based journalism to opinion piece writing as part of this, as it's much cheaper and gets more revenue. The guardian is one of the bigger offenders.
The BBC is the last organisation which does proper journalism which isn't pay walled. That forces at least some journalism (that is true of all English language news). Remove it and all accountability will end up behind a pay wall or moderated by the corporate line of social media oligarchs.
To illustrate a point. I'm going to ask a question: how many women on MN had horrific birth experiences and felt they weren't listened to by staff etc etc? The threads on the subject when they get going are appalling. Yet how many women here have read an article yesterday or today about the East Kent scandal? Have you?
That's the issue in a nutshell. Dull detailed looks into the root causes of grievance issues don’t sell papers or online advertising. Bashing Megan Markle does. 'Baby killing nurses' do.
Details and long winded stuff doesn't make money.
This is further compounded by the twitter effect which reduces 'debate to 256 characters'. You can't have a debate on twitter. (this is also why mn remains my social media of choice).
Local newspapers have declined in influence and with it, the voice of the provisional towns. Local issues can get written rough shot. There's no accountability on local government. That's why many red wallers voted blue - because of local mismanagement.
None of these things are coincidence.
Changes in media and revenue chasing play a significant role.
Ironically for me, I have been accused on MN that I'm a paid activist before. I post precisely because there is a gap where no one is paid.
The newspaper barons know how to make money. Often they don't push a particular line because different newspapers cater for different audiences and its better to just leave them to have their own editorial lines to make the most money...
Anyway... Stuff to do. I have a toilet to clean. Yes really.