Even though it does have a tendency to get excited sometimes and play the judge, jury and executioner itself, we keep up with their hyperbole either because we are interested in the news or because its plain entertaining. We (as society) are also getting more and more dumb lately - we don't want to dive deep into the news and get to the facts, we are happy with just a headline or sensation in order to base our prejudices on. All it takes to convince us of something these days is effective "headline management" by a media agency.
We are getting highly polarized
We are also getting highly polarized lately, we like to take sides in the battle and always want to see our side win. Again, media is not only taking advantage of this tendency but also trying very hard to ensure that it stays that way. Traditional media used to be a watchdog, its job was to keep its eyes open and report facts about everything (though the ways may be more entertaining than just informative sometimes). Its job was to be a good sensor or to "sense" what goes on mostly in economics and politics. But today's media also wants to be an effector, not just a sensor. It wants to effect our tendencies, it wants to play upon our emotions and instincts, it wants to keep us highly polarized so that we may keep fighting among ourselves like cats and dogs so that it (the monkey) can eat all the butter.
Media is encouraging a PC culture
They are encouraging a culture of extremely high political correctness (the us vs them battle) because that's the only environment in which media thrives (and we aren't talking about just mainstream media, but digital or social media is also very much to blame here). Unfortunately for us, though, PC is turning us into compliant zombies.
We have lost our faculty to think critically about an issue, we don't even want to read or understand anything beyond the headlines, we just want to take our ban and boycott hammers against a company or person, and register our dissent against them on a social media site like Twitter or Facebook. By doing this, we are promoting a very toxic cancel culture society where the whims of the masses are affecting events and decisions which are better handled by specialized institutions and due processes.
Media is enjoying the cancel culture
Of course, today's media enjoys these dissents and boycotts, they want lots more of them. They thrive in an environment of anarchy and civil unrest where people get killed and lynched, where the rioters' collective hive mind gets on the street and starts destroying everything the society has built. A mundane and boring life where everyone is content and satisfied with their lives isn't what today's media wants, it just doesn't thrive in that environment.
We must learn to not get outraged
Just as we learned not to fall for clickbaits and spam, going forward we must learn to not get outraged every now and then by social media headlines and news bulletins. We must understand that they are designed in a manner that gets maximum clicks and sensation from us. At the very least, we must attempt to look at the issue from both sides. We must strive to do an independent research from first sources and try to fact check if what the media says is true. If we cannot do that (because we are busy or whatever), then we have no right to participate in hive mind outrages and boycotts, let's understand that we are treading a very dangerous path in that case.
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