"Both have an agenda" What you imply is false balance. You claim neutrality whilst being occupied by extreme right viewpoints, given your rants about so called TDS. Those disinformation outlets are meant to influence you, and they do.

If you want, you can read other papers of people well versed in these topics. Anna Applebaum is a lady that is also well versed in these topics, as is Snyder. But there are not many outlets that do allow for these kind of deeper analysis (no, opinion stuff is not the same as analysis, how much some people want to sell it as such). They have written books as well, but I think they publish on the Atlantic as well.

Your confusion is something understandable, because in a way you are right: the way traditional media work, precisely that is abused by those actors we talk about. And they are absolutely ignorant about that. They give literal quotes, they put them into headlines even. They behave like an amnesia patient, when the Kremlin says "A" it will be put in the newspaper. The next day Peskov says "we never mentioned A, you do", it will be put in the newspaper too. On and on.

This way actors can sow distrust and confusion. Some people will pick headline 1, because it fits their beliefs. Some people will pick headline 2, because it fits their beliefs.

Let the media quote stuff related to culture wars and you can select multiple strata of people with different messages. Clever? Yes. Paralyzing? Yes. Divisive? Yes. Ripping apart society? Yes. Death to truth? Also yes.

Also, do not underestimate the way news organizations do almost completely rely on the feeds of press agencies. The critical filtering, selection, wording and timed release happens there.

The consolidation of media is very worrying indeed, DPG media is gobbling everything up. Till now there is a strict separation of editorial boards and corporate interest, but when that dam breaks we are fucked like those Americans are now. But then still, they would not be able to push too idiotic stuff because the public broadcasters do not report to corporate owners, and the disconnect cannot be too large. They keep the ecosystem accountable.

So, now you might understand why right wing populists attack public broadcasters. Why non-loyal scientists and experts are cleaned out immediately. Due to attacks from the lunatic FVD ("the moon landing is fake") and party-with-one-member PVV the Dutch broadcasting service NOS have to go undercover now to do their reporting.

Americans will not get much chance to know about the mechanics at play, the play book of the new autocrats, as topics like this are even on HN closed right away when hitting #1. This must be minimized, this must be normalized.

If you are pro democracy, these days are dark. Really dark. Trump or those other players in the theater are just a distraction. They do the work, they draw all the attention away from what they try to normalize. What kind of people are in for a world that want to install "might makes right", to end the rule based order where smaller players can be autonomous, both on level of society and the world.

With all things that happen, both small and big, ask yourself if this complies with norms, or requires you to look away. If you do the former, those crazies have a hard time to distract you with transgenders and "aliens".