Newspapers used to make a healthy profit from tiny ads. Network news used to be run at a loss by the tv networks. The introduction of CNN made news into a huge money maker. Craigslist ate the lunch of most newspapers.

Now, the internet (especially social networks) has made everything a race for attention. Now the New York Times has to compete and worry about Buzzfeed.

All of these trends now just reward attention more than anything. The standards for journalism are eroded when outlets like Buzzfeed allow anyone to write content, get it indexed by Google and then track how popular that piece of content gets and automatically promote it.

In a world like that, we get the loudest, angriest, most emotionally wrenching things; context, nuance and facts be damned.

Whatever you think of his politics, Donald Trump wouldn't be where he is without his savvy use of the media. He has exploited the weakness in our current system all the way to top of one of the two major parties in the most powerful country in the free world. All to the horror, shock and dismay of the vast majority of people who work in the media disagreeing with Trump's politics.