Can that attitude be fixed?
I honestly don't think so. This approach is an inherent part of their sensationalist business model. It's not a bug, it's a feature. And apparently, it works, and that's what makes so many prefer the Ami to the "boring" Mishpacha.
You wrote that all the Jewish media were equally bad in your mind in their coverage of our Antarctica trip. But to me, there's a fundamental and critical difference between accidentally getting a few facts and details wrong like some of the others, and intentionally and deliberately taking a drone picture that was taken by academic researchers with a legally required watermark on it, and erasing the watermark and claiming that it was taken by
@Something Fishy.
As a semi-professional writer, I can't fathom the mindset that could decide that the ends of a juicier story and selling more issues could justify the means of egregiously shirking a basic journalistic responsibility to the truth. But whenever I buy one of their issues, either for YT or for a story of special interest like I did this week, page after page reminds me that what happened with the Antarctica story wasn't an exception. It's their underlying business model. And as long as it sells, nothing's going to change, and the demographic that eats it up shows no sign of dwindling.
As I said, I learned my lesson a few years back, and I made a conscious decision to move my writing (and subscription) to Mishpacha, which sends me a PDF to review for every article before it goes to print and doesn't play games with its edits and photoshopping. Fool me once, shame on you...
