Fox News has done very well because they aren't a journalism organization. They just repeat what their audience wants to hear and laugh all the way to the bank. If what they're talking about is in any way related to the truth it is entirely coincidental. They have in multiple lawsuits now argued that they are not a news organization and can not be held to any journalistic standards.
Real journalism is difficult and ultimately expensive. Telling people what they want to hear is cheap and easy.
> Fox News has done very well because they aren't a journalism organization. They just repeat what their audience wants to hear and laugh all the way to the bank.
This could be stated for all news organizations, especially those that claim to be impartial on paper. You could argue Fox News is worse, but don't pretend that the New York Times or Washington Post don't have a slant - or a 30 degree angle. Especially after the Nicholas Sandmann debacle in which they paid settlements for defamation. Or another example, MSNBC was banned from the Rittenhouse trial after being caught following the Jury Bus.
It could be said that free markets are bad for journalism. Markets optimize for cost, so if you can create a product that looks like journalism but is less expensive to produce, it is likely to be the winner in a market system.
This is why it is fascinating to watch what happens to experiments like NPR, although even in that case it was only a partial success.
> Real journalism is difficult and ultimately expensive.
I'm not certain that that's the case, at least in Canada.
Time and time again, much of the lowest-quality reporting/journalism I've seen has been from the largest Canadian news organizations that have significant resources at their disposal.
On the other hand, most of the best journalism I've seen has been from the organizations that are far smaller, and with far fewer resources.
It has even gotten to the point where relatively average individuals who are merely live streaming or sharing videos/photos of events end up providing more detailed, representative, objective, and timelier reporting than the large news organizations.
Real journalism is difficult and ultimately expensive. Telling people what they want to hear is cheap and easy.