I think you raise a good point here, but one that is essentially invalidated by years of journalism that's mostly funded and managed by people with a lot of interest in the political discourse.
Very little of "the press" or "journalism" that reaches the true majority of people can be considered much more than entertainment television. Not only that, they have very clear goals, partisan alignments, and deals to own up to.
My point being, this picture of "the press" is not new nor is it simple to unravel, especially because a lot of the coverage we see, and how it's done, depends on a multitude of factors.
Let's take, for example, your point about the Hunter Biden story and let's allow ourselves to conjecture for a moment.
In a "press" state such as the one I described above, a big part of the "news media" is running amok with the story regardless of having little to no evidence to back it up.
On the other hand, the world is still spinning and news that are noteworthy are still coming out. One might even say people should know about these things.
What's one to do in face of such situation? Do we expect that the "news media" devote all focus to arguing the conspiracy theory, which will most likely boost the conversation around it, or should we expect the "news media" to focus on things that can actually be proven, assessed, researched?
Of course, this is one narrow example that only scratches the surface of something that, like I said, is very complex. But I do believe that, considering the current environment, it's more harmful to debate the conspiracy stories than to ignore them. Consider any other conspiracy theory that you ever heard of. Would it be beneficial for anyone to have constant debate on television about whether or not the Earth is round, or if men have been to the Moon, etc.
Very little of "the press" or "journalism" that reaches the true majority of people can be considered much more than entertainment television. Not only that, they have very clear goals, partisan alignments, and deals to own up to.
My point being, this picture of "the press" is not new nor is it simple to unravel, especially because a lot of the coverage we see, and how it's done, depends on a multitude of factors.
Let's take, for example, your point about the Hunter Biden story and let's allow ourselves to conjecture for a moment.
In a "press" state such as the one I described above, a big part of the "news media" is running amok with the story regardless of having little to no evidence to back it up. On the other hand, the world is still spinning and news that are noteworthy are still coming out. One might even say people should know about these things.
What's one to do in face of such situation? Do we expect that the "news media" devote all focus to arguing the conspiracy theory, which will most likely boost the conversation around it, or should we expect the "news media" to focus on things that can actually be proven, assessed, researched?
Of course, this is one narrow example that only scratches the surface of something that, like I said, is very complex. But I do believe that, considering the current environment, it's more harmful to debate the conspiracy stories than to ignore them. Consider any other conspiracy theory that you ever heard of. Would it be beneficial for anyone to have constant debate on television about whether or not the Earth is round, or if men have been to the Moon, etc.