That the media class likes to present the idea that “it’s too complicated for you to understand” as an excuse for serving up commentary (AKA opinion) instead of clear and detailed reporting is a problem. Meaningful commentary requires detailed and clear reporting first, which is happening less and less. Add in the 24hour digital news landscape and you’ve created a huge surface area more readily filled in with opinion (cheap) vs reporting (expensive) vs investigative journalism (very expensive). Before long, collating opinions gets presented as some sort of investigative journalism, which it isn’t. Even if there is real reporting in there, the sheer weight of opinion can make the reporting seem like just an outlier opinion.

If you’re worried about how this is playing out in the US, it’s a catastrophe in Australia where the Murdochs dominate and “trust in the media” still has some inertia. And the truth is, I’m not getting paid a cent for creating another slice of opinion noise. So raising your voice against the “problem”, whatever you see that to be, is potentially contributing to the “problem”.

Sadly, a lot of the audience don’t want to pull back curtain back because they’re enjoying the circus too much. And just after the corporate pick pockets have finished their fleecing, the commentary ring master will just yell “over there”.

So all this commentary might not be helpful to you, but it is for someone. Who? Shouldn’t be hard to guess.