>>This MSM thing is rather a broad brush. The media is owned by hard nosed businessmen who want to make a profit. Why do you think they would be pursuing a partisan agenda which is out of step with the times. ?

I can theorize about why they do it, but so far I'm just describing what I see. E.g. even when comprehensively rebutted, the widely broadcast "antisemitic" label for Bannon is replaced by guilt by association smears followed by "so there's all this - but we have no evidence of anti-semitic statements by him." Transparent and mean-spirited IMHO, especially when experts have started calling the behavior defamatory.

The lesson is not being learned and is the cause for another smear: the "assault on free speech" when Trump says he wants to remove media protection against defamation. He's talking about a landmark decision in New York Times v Sullivan which means (as Justice Scalia put it) that the media can "libel public figures without liability so long as you are relying on some statement from a reliable source, whether it’s true or not." This allowed the NYT to publicize sensational unsubstantiated accusations against Trump and to mock him when he protested.

Scalia also opined that "... the old libel law used to be (that) you’re responsible, you say something false that harms somebody’s reputation, we don’t care if it was told to you by nine bishops, you are liable. New York Times v. Sullivan just cast that aside because the Court thought in modern society, it’d be a good idea if the press could say a lot of stuff about public figures without having to worry. And that may be correct, that may be right, but if it was right it should have been adopted by the people. It should have been debated in the New York Legislature and the New York Legislature could have said, ‘Yes, we’re going to change our libel law.’"

What Trump proposes, is that this "modern" ruling that dates back to 1964 - IOW 52 years ago- didn't account for what the media has come, which includes abusing this privilege. So he wants to repeal it. To succeed, he needs to get it before lawmakers and have them agree with him.

My opinion would be that re-introducing the obligation to prove accusations against a public figure, would do the world of good for civil discourse and media reputation. There's no defamation if it's true, so it's hardly an assault on free speech and (once again) the media ought to consider why Trump thinks this way.

I cannot say whether all this is connected to the downward spiral of most MSM as well as Twitter and other established social media.