There& #39;s been lots of talk about political media & how to reform it. Here& #39;s a clarifying frame:

The mission of political media in a democracy should be to create a disincentive for lying & cheating. If there is no such disincentive, then the media is, ipso facto, failing.

No media can ever hope to eliminate lying & cheating; the incentives to do so are perpetual, baked in the cake. But at a minimum, media should strive to create a context in which politicians *think twice*, in which they balance the temptations of lying against the penalties.

The current situation in US politics is one in which there are, to a first approximation, NO disincentives to lie or cheat. You can do it right in the open, repeatedly, for years, and the media won& #39;t change the way it treats you. You might get dinged for a news cycle or two ...

... but there& #39;s no enduring risk, no chance that the media will treat you like a liar, that the other members of your party will shun you, or that you& #39;ll lose your privileges or influence.

If you want to reform media, change that. Work backward from there.