For the longest time the news, televised or printed, has been the most trusted source of information. We have no one but Walter Cronkite to thank for that (ask your grandparents who that is), but at one point something changed completely for the news media.

What was once the most trusted source of information in the US has now become a no-man's land for “fake news.”

In the 1960s, ABC was in trouble. They were losing to CBS and NBC in terms of their ratings. They had to think of something to outdo the professional reporting of Cronkite and the TV news specials of NBC. Their solution was to bring in two figures to debate the happenings of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. The two figures were William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal, who were conservative and liberal intellectuals respectively. Over the course of ten debates, they gave sharp-witted answers and a barrage of insults to the other. In one particular segment surrounding the Democratic National Convention, Vidal infamously labeled Buckley as a “crypto-Nazi” and Buckley rebutted by calling Vidal a “queer” and threatened to “sock [him] in [his] goddamn face and stay plastered.” Does any of this sound familiar yet? It was from these heated segments that cable news media found a new way to bring in the ratings. Fast forward a couple decades and the political parties changed along with the style of news reporting.

In 1979, the Republican Party entered a new ideological phase. Limited government, states rights, and individual liberty were still part of the party’s core tenets, but they had just found the light in “family values.” With Southern Baptist minister Jerry Falwell leading the charge, the Republican party embarked on a moral crusade to end abortion, oppose gay marriage, and bring Christianity back to public schools. It was through this change that the political conversation changed from what was legal under the law to what was the morally correct thing to do in regards to policy.

It was at this point that various Christian-based lobbying organizations began to take root in American political culture, such as the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, and later the American Center for Law and Justice. These organizations all exist to counter groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and ACORN. All of these organizations, except ACORN, are still active in US politics, but they are slowly becoming antiquated thanks to a new trend in US conservatism.

From the 1990s onward, pundits began to replace the old trusted news anchors like Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace. MSNBC toted figures like Chris Matthews, and later Rachel Maddow Fox News had its pundits like Bill O’Reilly. its own stories to tell, which might explain why it’s one of the most watched cable news networks in the twenty-first century. Fox News is at something of a crossroads. Leading one path are Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, both of whom have continuously found ways to redirect attention away from Donald Trump’s missteps and borderline scandals in his presidency and pin hypocrisy on the Democratic Party. Leading the other path is Shepard Smith, who periodically calls for accountability for the president and Congress.

During Obama’s entire presidency, Fox News had nothing but criticism and conspiracies to pin on the president the Democrat-controlled Congress in 2008. It lasted long after the Republicans took control of the House and Senate. Now MSNBC has embarked on the same crusade against the Trump presidency, disclosing his tax returns and criticizing his sometimes careless and erratic behavior as a head of state.

Political news has reached another turning point, and this is surely the most critical of all. Instead of debating the morally sound thing to do, pundits are now debating if certain events are actually happening: climate change, Trump’s collusion with Russia, stifling of free speech, erasure of history, and Ted Cruz being the Zodiac killer. The only thing Americans want from watching the news is truth; if they’re not getting it from the news, then I say it’s time to turn off the TV and read a book. At least they can still inform themselves.