Well, they did check sources, but I get your point pundit. Listening to disgruntled 'intelligence' people also became 'standard' after Watergate. Intelligence is an easy source that's biased but credible. For their part intelligence folks learned how to milk that advantage with partnering causing a marriage between government and the press that gave us the 'Pravda' look to the MSM we have today. Also DNC war rooms discovered if you put MORE self serving stories into 'news packets' along with intelligence stuff that more of the stories you want run will run. (the more self serving stories rejected the better because editors felt good about their great judgement in catching the self serving etc etc etc.)Well, at least that's how it looks IMHO.
True, the intelligence community learned how to exploit the press. They learned the craft of toppling governments and getting rid of leaders they didn’t like. Then they said, “Hey we can apply the same tools and techniques to run the U.S. government.”
And, of course, the internet and tracking your identity wherever you go was part of the game.
Thank God Musk took over Twitter and Trump started Truth.social. From those beachheads, maybe we can begin to see respect for free speech come back and our Republic preserved.