Media has always depended on audiences and the greater the audience the greater, usually, its success.
Now many, if not most, journalists have click profiles hard coded into their contracts.
In other words, the get paid on how many clicks they generate.
Hence bizarre scenarios such as the UK’s ultra right wing Daily Express endlessly speculating about when the volcano under Yellowstone will explode. I kid you not.
Of course, in the UK it’s the weather. In the US it’s the endless lies around Hilary Clinton promoted by Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch.
The manipulation of people to sell clicks is perhaps the most insidious aspect of modern life. it has made lying mainstream and acceptable.
Why should truth get in the way of the American Dream, which is utterly predelicted by the ability of an individual to climb over the truth and the dead cold bodies of anyone to het to money.