> news outlets and journalists have always had incentive to present extreme takes to get people angry, cause that sells.
As someone who’s read a newspaper daily for 30+ years, that is definitely not true. The news has always tried to capture your attention but doing so using anger and outrage, and using those exclusively, is a newer development. Newspapers and broadcast news used to use humor, suspense, and other things to provoke curiosity. When the news went online, it became focused on provoking anger and outrage. Even print edition headlines tend to be tamer than what’s in the online edition.
As someone who’s read a newspaper daily for 30+ years, that is definitely not true. The news has always tried to capture your attention but doing so using anger and outrage, and using those exclusively, is a newer development. Newspapers and broadcast news used to use humor, suspense, and other things to provoke curiosity. When the news went online, it became focused on provoking anger and outrage. Even print edition headlines tend to be tamer than what’s in the online edition.