My gripe is less with democracy and more with the ad-driven economy that has taken over.

The competition is so intense that in order for media to survive now, it needs to relentlessly farm clicks/views. So a story about a datacenter being built near a migratory goose pond carries way more value than the story about the pond actually is a Walmart parking lot runoff pit.

There is like this business game of whoever can fear monger and misinform the most without outright lying wins, and being honest and truthful gets you punished.