Maybe, but also consider that there were very few voices with a platform speaking out. One possibility is that people were more confident of their wrong opinions in the past and now it is obvious when people are fabricating. I'd bet there were great journalists of the past who would simply look like imaginative liars today because we can very easily fact check them. The world is huge, complicated and scary. Any perception that there is a team of people out there understanding it for us is a comforting illusion but ultimately not much more than that.

30 years ago I would probably have struggled to compare media reporting of what a politician said to what a transcript but today that is no trouble at all. This newfound capability has trashed my trust in any political journalist.