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Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist
I disagree. Asking the tough questions would get ratings. It's a combination of being scared and lazy. They're scared of lawsuits and blow back from reporting more harsh information from one side than another. It's all about appearing "fair and balanced" and is admittedly hard to go after Trump and not to find something to go after Clinton the same way. It's also lazy
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I think if you think it's laziness then you don't really get it.
The reason trump has been in the news so often and without followup is because it's lazy and easy and drives ratings.
Running a long form investigation into Trump corruption is the opposite of lazy, it is labour intensive and to do it right requires qualified journalists with experience.
Getting some model school dropout to introduce the latest poorly shot and heavily edited sound byte is the ultimate return on investment. The news is crowdsourced, you underpay some tech lackey to edit the video appropriately and then you pay the model school dropout to introduce it and if they won't, you can their ass and hire the next one in line.
They aren't scared of lawsuits and blowback, they are scared of industry regulation and losing access. Pissing off politicians by attacking them for their corruption is a good way of losing access to said politicians and perhaps even having them defend themselves with regulatory policies against the industry.
Look at how often trump sues journalists, the new york times doesn't care if Trump sues them, but they care that they continue to have access to top members of the GOP establishment. But, to get that kind of access you have to pay to play.