In Ancient Hellenistic times, Thucydides writes:
“I do not think that one will be far wrong in accepting the conclusions I have reached from the evidence which I have put forward. It is better evidence than that of the poets, who exaggerate the importance of their themes, or of the prose chroniclers, who are less interested in telling the truth than in catching the attention of their public, whose authorities cannot be checked, and whose subject-matter, owing to the passage of time, is mostly lost in the unreliable streams of mythology.” - History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides
Even then, Thucydides observes that pundits and practitioners of “news” may have information, insights, or filters that the uninformed public may not. That information asymmetry is considered, in economics, a moral hazard: the agent (news publication, pundit, dramatist) may be incentivized to exaggerate, sensationalize, or strategically withhold/disclose information for their own benefit.
History repeats. And, the humans of ancient Sparta and Athens haven’t changed that much from the modern human of today.
The wisdom: incentives matter.
