For critics of the mainstream media—myself very much included—it is tempting to always feel some kinship toward independent media commentators, reporters, and influencers. After all, we have lived through an era in which the skeptics of establishment media institutions were proven right again and again: from the hysterically off-base mainstream contentions regarding Russiagate and Hunter Biden's laptop to insufficient scrutiny of official claims about the COVID-19 pandemic. Score one (or more) for the outsiders.

The complication, however, is quite obvious: Just because expert, mainstream, legacy media institutions made serious errors, it does not follow that every contrarian, fringe, or conspiratorial idea is automatically correct. It's a mistake to dismiss the cranks entirely; it's also

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