That's a classic trick of opinion manipulation. You start an account that posts factual content that caters to target audience. Then once the rapport is built, you throw your narratives in. The barrier to do this, on scale, all the time has never been lower

All media is opinion manipulation. You could even stretch that to say that all communication is opinion manipulation.

Highly respected and highly ranked mass media sometimes publish outright lies and made up stories, completely knowingly. Because they are in the business of manipulation. So you have to trust your gut, and verify if something smells strange. Many times it isn't even possible to verify, as for much of war reporting.

There will never be a time when there will be an absolute guarantee of anything. Not as long as there are people.

I think there's a difference between trying to stay informed and seeking information. I swipe to my newsfeed and see seven stories ranging from local to national, from local news station to fox to New York times. Fact checking each of these stories will take time that I do not care to spend, and I imagine most folks will not.

That begs the question: If you don't care about these stories enough to do anything to verify, then why do you care to hear/see/read these stories?

The only rational answer is that they are just entertainment to you. And to most other people.

“If you don’t care about false alarms, why do you listen to the fire alarm sounding and then evacuate the building? The only rational answer is that the fire alarm is just entertainment to you”

The rational answer is that they look at the news to see if there are any stories important and relevant enough that they would care to verify them.

Yes, agreed. News has become entertainment, because the standard for news has fallen so much. Which makes actual news harder for most people to attain.