The problem is that many folks that don’t pay attention will not know that NYT and WashPost are biased.
ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN will quote the editorial - and think that Trump did something evil.
They will not remember all the talk about Russia collusion and forget to ask
There is a certain percentage of the population that still gets their news from the major networks and mainstream media including the press. They go about their business and maybe converse with others like them who don't pay close attention. They hear only headlines from their favorite music radio station at the top of the hour, maybe briefly see the front page of their newspaper as they go to the sports section.
They are not politically in tune and take to heart all the negative messaging coming from these sources. Come election time, they respond to the Dems request to vote to correct the wrongdoing by Trump and give him the defeat he deserves. Add to all this the Dem voter fraud which is being totally ignored by the Trump campaign (voter harvesting, absentee ballot fraud, same day registration, etc. etc.) and the Dems have their victory. With all the media spouting lies and Dems rigging the vote, we have an uphill pull to have a Trump second term.
Hardly anyone reads newspapers anymore.
During the fifties and sixties my dad worked in the city and commuted from the suburbs of Philadelphia. He and all the other “suits” on the train spent the whole time reading the newspaper.
There was a special way of half-folding the pages when in close quarters, and he said you had to kind of snap the pages when turning them to get the crease to fold right. He said all the businessmen must have read about the same speed, because there would suddenly be a thunderous sound of everyone on the train flipping the pages at about the same time. Then it would be relatively quiet for a few minutes.
Even then it was partly bullshit - they were mostly on the sports page and the crossword puzzles. They would dutifully scan the front page an editorial pages. But there was sort of an image you had to keep up of a responsible well-informed citizen who read the newspaper. A lot of it was ritual even then.
When I was a young commuter during the eighties, I drove mostly, but when I did take the train, the newspaper thing had already dwindled almost to nothing - and it was ONLY the sports page people were looking at.
Now my kids are commuting and of course their mobile devices can alert them to news stories or give them the option of reading on line versions of the NYT, but there is so much internet content out there..
Nobody actually reads a newspaper cover to cover, certainly not the NYT.
I’m surprised they can stay in business.