Well, that's what there's a demand for. The problem isn't the format of the show, it's that people conflate opinion and fact and end up getting offended by the latter. The news is there to provide factual information, which is exactly what it does (as much as people will twist that, it's still very much the case). These opinion segments are designed to get "expert analysis" and viewpoints to create discussions, disagreements mean higher viewing figures, more hits on Youtube etc. The media wants outrage, but at the same time it doesn't, because it's still got to maintain an air of credibility otherwise people won't trust it as a source. Papers like the Daily Mail, the Express, The Sun etc are full of sensationalist bullshit, but they never quite cross the line because they know if they do, they're knackered. I still take small pleasures in putting copies of the i Paper over those papers in shops, just so people can't directly see the crap they spew. Call it individual media regulation from your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman.
The media is and always has been driven by demand, so when people claim that the stories are febrile in content, it's only because the most popular talking points are bullshit things on the internet that have garnered a lot of attention. The media now is designed to give you the information you require, before shuffling you onto the next thing before you take pause to actually think about what was said. It's why you get outrage over headlines about immigrants one day, but then by the next day those people have already forgotten about it.
The issue I've got with the media at the moment is that the stuff that actually needs reporting on properly, such as humanitarian crises, potential geopolitical disputes, climate change etc, aren't being addressed when these are things people really, really need to know about.
The media only has control in so far as people buy it, like anything else, if it's ignored, it'll go away. People actively go out of their way to find things to get pissed off at, so it's easy pickings for them. It's spilled over into social media, people can scroll until they find something they agree with and then dive in so that they get that buzz of feeling like part of something. If you don't agree, instead of reading the other side of the debate, you can just skip it until you find somebody with the same opinion as you. Horrific.
Things like Byline Times, (not that I'm bigging it up because I've contributed in the past or anything) report both sides of the political spectrum and absolutely stick to truth, they do a lot of fact checking too. They're much better than any newspaper out there at the moment.
