If you look at the linked page, pretty obvious that the source of the divide is politically driven and largely tied to republican distrust of the media — which goes back Regan destroying objective reporting with deregulation in 1987 and Clinton enabling media monopolies in the 90s:
It was popularized by fox news. They declare themselves as the only source of "fair and balanced news" and lot of less sophisticated people buy into it because they feed them stories, regardless of the truth behind it, they want to see and rub their opinion all over it instead of just reporting the facts of the story.
Prior to deregulation, all news organizations were required by law to present both sides of the story fairly — after it, the were not. Without deregulation, Fox as is would not have been legally possible. Policy was explicitly pushed by Regan’s executive team at the FCC and Regan vetoed bill passed by US Congress to over turn it; if that’s not the definition of being politically driven, not sure what is, given Supreme Court had already ruled FCC was allowed to enforce fairness in the media.
Without fairness being legally regulated, media will never gain the public’s trust again — which at this point is unlikely because the government has become so corrupted by its own self interest to do so; this includes governments preferring monopolies in industries that relate to national security such as media & telecommunications. Decline in the public’s trust is not a result of fair media not being trustworthy, but of biased media intentionally sowing distrust.
I have repeatedly seen individuals who lean towards biased sources be more biased when presented with fair accounts of news events. On flip side, my experience is that individuals seeking balanced accounts of news events tend to be more fair when accessing the events.
Such rules don't work. The UK does have such rules still written into law and the BBC's charter but they are simply ignored. The regulators are fully captured and act as enforcers of the chosen agenda, e.g. at the start of lockdowns Ofcom created a new rule that broadcasters weren't allowed to question government health advice!
Fox is not the problem the USA has. Fox is the solution. Would all the people who think news media is untrustworthy be lapping up CNN if Fox didn't exist? Again, other countries provide the answer - no, they wouldn't. They would just assert that all TV news is biased and refuse to watch any at all, whilst simmering in anger at the system that tries to eliminate them from public life.
All American broadcast media would be illegal under an actually strict interpretation of such a doctrine, which is why such doctrines are never actually enforced as written. The fairness doctrine would not make US media "fair". It would be exactly what it is everywhere else that tried this - state censorship of viewpoints that upset the establishment. I understand that fact very well indeed, given that I can and do directly compare media between a place that has such a rule and places that don't. Congress was correct to abolish it. The UK should do the same thing.
https://apnews.com/article/business-immigration-deregulation...