I watched a video last night, from Rachel Maddow, which was talking about how these days, what in years past was debunkable by the media is no longer debunkable, due to the closed loop of hyper-partisanship that exists. She was focused on the right wing-big shocker ehh?- though it applies equally well to left wing echo chambers.
As an example she showed all the press devoted to the $200 million a day price tag of Obama's trip to India, including 10% of the world's largest real blue water Navy. The fact-checking was simply, someone read it on the internet, and then it spread throughout the echo chamber.
The Pentagon actually had to hold a press conference to refute these claims.
The media sources available are reinforcing mythologies. One of the drawbacks to more democratic information. I think there's a parallel between the reasons constitutional law exists, and this kind of spreading of untruths. But the constitution already protects speech, and it seems like journalism is a dying profession, when opinions count for more than hard-hitting investigative journalism.
It's a sorry state of affairs, especially when it seems like the choices that exist are between different flavours of zealotry.