Unfortunately this is the low bar set by a lot of modern journalism. We need a way out of it back to neutral, factual reporting.
Creating fact focused journalism is a laudible goal but I'd be curious of what specific time in history you think that this was generally the case?
These days, you can't start with the assumption that a story is written to J standards. Rather, you need to start with the assumption that it's pushing narrative, and hope to be surprised.
Case in point: The Economist. Certainly one of the historically and currently most respected publications.
The Econsomist never claimed not to be biased. In fact they proudly produce opinion journalism.
The point, however, is that their reporting is fair and considers the other side of the argument and that the're absolutely open about where they stand.
Foreign Policy is another good example coming to mind.
News is produced by humans and humans have biases and always will have.
What's new is massive lying on an industrial scale and the fact that facts seem very relative nowadays, depending on the news medium.
I think in some respects we're better off now. An outlet like The Intercept couldn't exist 40 years ago. They have a clear bias but some of the stories they break are huge and are exactly the kind of thing the NYT in its heyday would've sat on.
Our old media system had the benefit that it helped create a fairly singular truth for people to follow. But it created what I think was equal to the massive lying you are concerned about by just not reporting on lots of stuff.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/why-doe...