Sounds like you've independently observed the Gell-Mann amnesia effect[1]
Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I refer to it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.)
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all. But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn't. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.
As a former FB employee, I have since treated everything from the NYT in particular with suspicion. That said, part of the reason I left was my belief that the VR play was a massive boondoggle.
Reading the News is like hanging with some fancy friends who are entertaining but also a little drunk and starting to repeat themselves.
It becomes apparent that the conversation always veers into some heavy and kind of dark shit that is mainly based on conjecture, and nobody is smiling or enjoying themselves.
After 20 minutes I’m not having fun anymore and I want to go home. But I’m glad I came, because they might discuss something important without me there.
Gell-Mann Amnesia is about competence. Major Media Outlet coverage of Big Tech isn't (just) incompetent, but also openly adversarial. For both financial and cultural reasons.
That said -- I interviewed with FB last month and got the distinct impression that morale was rock bottom.
