The likelihood of a news story going viral in our society has little to do with its newsworthiness, its unusualness, or even whether or not it is factually accurate. The single most likely factor in whether or not a news story will have mass appeal is whether it appears to validate the worldview of one of the two mainstream political factions. This is why the mainstream media have been deliberately sowing partisan divisiveness and marketing toward increasingly distant partisan echo chambers instead of just reporting the news; they have an obvious profit motive to do so, because tickling people's egos with hate porn and illusory validation is the best way to get clicks and generate ad revenue.

Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/political-partisanship-is-a-propaganda