It seems to illustrate our attenuation to story and the effect of dominant stories on our worldviews.
I'd suggest it's less a challenge to democracy and more an affirmation of the criticality of a fact-based, unbiased 4th estate, and the scary effects of anyone with a comb-over and green screen being able to make their own "news" show.
So do the politicians in power only give out media licenses to news sources that feed from those "Anonymous Sources" that support their agenda? The problem is not who is allowed to report, it's that the mainstream news has started citing anonymous sources with ridiculous frequency and the credibility of those sources is never called into question because nobody knows who they are. When those anonymous sources turn out to be wrong, nobody cares and nobody's reputation is damaged for reporting totally made up stuff that's likely someone with an axe to grind's propaganda.
10,000 Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro, Andy Ngo peddling conspiracy or ideology under the guise of journalism is not better.
You’re right as well of course about anonymous sources being an issue, but your “politicians in power” comment is an unnecessary straw man to the conversation.
I'd suggest it's less a challenge to democracy and more an affirmation of the criticality of a fact-based, unbiased 4th estate, and the scary effects of anyone with a comb-over and green screen being able to make their own "news" show.