Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your issues with opinion columns from 15 to 20 years ago does not render the entire medium of 21st century journalism "fake news". I'm certain if you read the entirety of the New York Times (and many other outlets) published articles on the subject you would find a range of perspectives, not just the ones that you're purporting sum up journalism of the past 20 years. I was reading the same outlets you were at that ti…
> Those sections are not all equal in their "truthiness" So why are low-truthiness sections like 'opinion pieces' and 'commentaries' published? Well they're cheap, but also because someone's pushing a particular agenda, or agendas. So how's that different from someone spouting outrage-wrapped half-truths on social media?
But the publishing of them does not represent them as being anything of any validity any more than publishing "letters to the editor" asserts the opinions therein are of any practical value other than the exposure to the fact that they are indeed held. It's an attempt to hold an even remotely civilized, and detached discussion at length.
No single opinion column is a conclusion, except maybe that of the writer's. That's why you'll see debates go on for extended periods of time-columns and papers written back and forth on singular ideas sometimes for years, decades even.
But I'm not here to defend opinion columns—I rarely read them myself outside of a few more local polemics. I was discussing the dishonest treatment of an "MSM" that is only "fake news" and "propaganda" because of a misreading and lack of media literacy in general. (If only many people who frequented forums like Parler treated those discussions with as much deference rather than planting bombs and bludgeoning a federal officer to death)