All people including journalists can become attached to their preferred narratives. A free press in a democracy cannot be the enemy of "the people." I can become the enemy of some people's narratives. I think it is fair to say that elite for profit media (outside of Fox News.) Over represents the world view of College Educated people living in and around NYC and Washington DC. Many of them have worked very hard to be inclusive of diverse voices and also provide fact checking at the same time.
Trump was the one who interrupted and disrupted the moderator and Biden in the first debate, and then refused to show up because the commission on presidential debates sought ways to require both participants to follow the format.
The Republican Party has used media bashing as a key tool ever since Richard Nixon's administration. Some media is clearly partisan on both sides, some still attempts to be non-biased while it inescapably reflects the worldview of owners and editors.
Blaming the media for the division in American society is oversimplistic. The media amplifies existing divisions. Responsible journalists can't give equal time to two mathematicians if one says 2 plus 2 equals 4, but the other insists it equals 5. We must have some ground for a shared understanding of reality for political discourse to exist. I am sharing a Lincoln speech from his famous debates with Stephen Douglas on whether northern politicians were responsible for the passionate debates about slavery. It is worth reflecting on. Just replace politicians with the media and see how it reads.
Source: Abraham Lincoln, speech at Alton, Illinois, October 15, 1858
"You may say . . . that all of this difficulty in regard to the institution of slavery is the mere agitation of office seekers and ambitious Northern politicians. . . . But is it true that all of the difficulty and agitation we have in regard to this institution of slavery springs from office seeking— from the mere ambition of politicians? . . . How many times have we had danger from this question? . . . [D]oes not this question make a disturbance outside of political circles? Does it not enter into the churches and rend them asunder? . . . Is it not this same mighty, deep-seated power that somehow operates on the minds of men, exciting and stirring them up in every avenue of society— in politics, in religion, in literature, in morals, in all manifold relations in life? Is this the work of politicians?"
