This is an intensely important point which, by rights, deserves its own article. As a professional writer, and long-time journalist, my industry has been hijacked by untrained hacks who have no fucking idea how to research, how to write or how to present facts. In an era where the journalist him or herself IS the story as opposed to the respectful report providing data for thoughtful consumption, our collective hunger to be the first with the news (to get likes, to get money, to garner attention, name your poison) we have no clue who to believe. Local news has been dumped aside as inconsequential, to your point, which increasingly makes the Average Joe feel even more useless, when the opposite is true.