>I think a slightly more nuanced view is that

Nuanced positions put up a fight. Strawmen keel right over.

>while perhaps big name old media of yore had a presumption of authority, morals, and public responsibility and that probably meant some degree of trust was potentially warranted (though no doubt abused at times), with the commercial push toward tabloidism and the internet all of those corrective influences have vanished, such that the presumption of authority no longer has legs. In fact, most of them have effectively turned in to subscriber-only outlets, which makes them directly commercial and capitulates any public service notion.

Exactly. And once that trust is gone there's no incentive to care.

>https://www.amic.media/media/files/file_352_3490.pdf seems to be the best study. It seemingly suggests that public interest media and democracy have non-trivial association. Remove one and the other falls.

I don't distrust the study on it's face but this is basically industry group saying they're vital to society. Realtors will say the same thing about themselves too.

Fair points though if you view it as a more of cry of desperate help in to the void from a dying industry than a self-promotional activity, then cast around for anyone else who could be reasonably expected to produce such a study and come up blank, then it's easier to take seriously.