There have long been complaints that the world has been getting more superficial, and in the case of media (and its coverage of politics) the complaint seems to be well-deserved.
The problem boils down to issues like "ratings". In essence, its about making television "entertaining", and newspapers making their coverage popular. Political coverage therefore has to fit into the same lens in order to be accessible to the general public. Equally, however, the media operate in an environment shared by their political masters, meaning that overt criticism of some figures can lead to negative consequences for a media outlet (such as losing "access"); so a fine line is often taken by the fourth estate. Both these factors together explain how media coverage of politics has gradually become more superficial and less informative (and informed). The degree of that superficiality has only become truly clear with the rise of Trump in the USA and the cause of "Brexit" in the UK.
"Personality politics" has its roots in the political campaigns for people like Reagan in the USA, continued by the likes of Bill Clinton, which was then copied by Tony Blair. Following from Blair in the UK, we had David Cameron, who molded the Conservative Party in his own image.
The personality politics that these figures harnessed was about capturing the "centre ground". While much of Reagan's rhetoric was Libertarian in its outlook, in office he was often more pragmatic - and more "centrist" - than some people realized at the time. This explained why he won successive elections. Clinton and Blair achieved the same, using the same centrist platform, albeit coming from the other side of the political spectrum.
However, personality politics doesn't work in a vacuum, and it needs a media platform in order to thrive. That media platform has been intertwined with the political sphere for decades, as those in politics and the media often share the same background, educational ties and peer groups. In short, media coverage of politics occupied its own bubble: in the USA it was all about life inside "The Beltway", while in the UK it was all about Westminster gossip.
That superficial fascination with "gossip" was another facet of the entertainment factor in politics. As much of politics is dry and technical to the layman, it requires titillation and personality to bring it alive. This explains why the most famous politicians in Capitol Hill or Westminster were always the ones who were used acts of showmanship. In Ronald Reagan, a former actor, the USA had someone who understood this very well. Donald Trump today has his own exaggerated (but very successful) form of showmanship, clearly modeled on that of Reagan.
A wit might say that politics is the realm of the failed actor. The politicians that have been successful have all used these skills in order to gain the limelight; the politicians that naturally have these skills can rise all the more quickly, along with the movement attached to them.
In the UK, the rise of UKIP is matched with the rise of the politician, Nigel Farage. Here is a figure who has had far more media coverage over the years - going back twenty years - than has merited the popularity of his party. And yet, it was only after the financial crisis (more on that later) that he came to dominate the political sphere so disproportionately.
On one hand, politics became more "professional" during the tenure of Clinton and Blair, so that by the end of the 1990s, there seemed to exist a kind of "conventional wisdom" in society, supported by the media and the political class, that made some issues seem "taboo" to talk about. This was the flip side to centrism. The political class and the media seemed complicit to those on the ideological fringes in shutting-down debate, so that the number of issues that came to be reported on and discussed dwindled. Social issues like racism and homophobia were tackled by government for he first time in living memory, leaving those on the ideological fringe to claim that they themselves were becoming a "persecuted minority". Thus were sown the seeds of the far-right claiming that they were fighting for "free speech", against a complicit media and centrist agenda.
Changes in technology and the rise of internet media have also seen a hollowing-out of traditional news media, like local newspapers. National news agencies have also had to rethink their priorities in the face of falling revenues thanks to these structural shifts in the media industry. What this has meant is that the kind of in-depth reporting that was once common (think how "Watergate" became exposed) has become increasingly difficult to finance. This has meant tough choices, and the result is that the level of reportage and knowledge of issues is not as thorough or as deep as it used to be.
This explains, for example, how the media in the UK have been so poor at grasping the many issues surrounding the implications for Brexit for the country. Apart from how these issues are reported (i.e. the degree of superficiality already mentioned), and the issue of media slant (i.e. not wanting to go against "established opinion") is the issue of how well it is reported in the first place. Simply, the lack of technical knowledge apparent in those working for the media means that they often don't even know what are the right questions to ask to begin with, let alone whether they choose to ask them or not.
In this way, dissemination and lies by politicians pass by unchecked, assumed as fact by media figures who often simply don't know what they're talking about. There is the facade of media interrogation when politicians are interviewed or asked questions after their public appearances, but this lack of technical knowledge, along with the media's own reasons for not wanting to "upset" politicians (as this could damage future "access") means that the public only ever get a "version" of the truth. This is one reason why, if you want to understand a story in any real detail, you need to read it from several media sources, and find the balance somewhere between them all.
This is where "fake news" gets its fuel from, and why Donald Trump's press office talked of "alternative facts". In a time when the media has been under financial pressures due to the structural changes talked of earlier, this allows the more unscrupulous parts of the media (i.e. those with overt ideological agendas) to claim that there is no "real" truth, only many different forms of it. Because the media have been attacked as being too "establishment" for before seeming to favor "centrist" candidates, this leaves them vulnerable to attack from those who have an agenda against centrism i.e. Populists.
Populism and personality politics have found the perfect environment to gestate in since the financial crisis. While prior to the financial crisis, personality politics usually favored centrist politics (thanks to a like-minded media), since then it has been the Populists that have gone from strength to strength.
The rise of Populism
The media were as blindsided by the financial crisis as the politicians were. In some ways, the financial crisis saw the end of unchallenged rule of "centrism". With the ideological walls of the establishment being shook by the financial crisis (let's not forget that only government bailouts prevented a second "Great Depression"), it forced the media to reassess the fluid political landscape. In the USA, the rise of the "TEA Party", a hard-right faction of the Republicans, matched the concurrent rise of UKIP in the UK, itself effectively a hard-right faction of the Conservative Party.
While the TEA Party lacked one unifying, charismatic figure (with several personalities vying for preeminence), UKIP had Nigel Farage. In the years after the financial crisis, Farage's brand of British Populism (which like the TEA Party, had a Libertarian agenda) captured the media's attention. With Westminster seeming to represent all that was tired and out-of-touch since the financial crisis, most of the political "excitement" seemed to come from Farage.
The media superficiality during the long period of centrist dominance before the financial crisis, along with earlier accusations of bias of "political correctness", meant that the pendulum swung the other way: disproportionate (and flattering) coverage was then given to Farage, allowing him to be seen as someone on the side of "the people" against the "the establishment". His background in The City was something that was easily brushed under the carpet. Meanwhile, those media outlets that did criticize his agenda were labelled as part of "the establishment" themselves, and so in the now-antagonistic atmosphere after the financial crisis, they couldn't win either way.
The only person in the political establishment in the UK that matched this new form of "personality politics" was Boris Johnson. After being Mayor of London for eight years, he had become the "king across the water" as far as David Cameron was concerned. Conveniently entering parliament in 2015 during his last year of tenure as London Mayor, he was able to use his position in Westminster as well as his media coverage to great effect during the EU referendum in 2016. Along with Farage, these two figures were largely responsible for the success of the "leave" campaign - the most obvious indication of the success of Populist "personality politics" over a centrist establishment.
And of course, at the same time across in the USA, we had the rise of Donald Trump. While the EU referendum was in full flow in the UK, the USA was in the presidential primaries, which allowed Trump to take advantage of the same anti-establishment agenda. Using the same skepticism that the "leave" campaign had towards "experts", Trump attacked "fake news" by the established media. And now with both "Brexit" as an unstoppable force, and Trump as an immovable object, we've entered an age when media outlets can be called "enemies of the people", and it all seem completely normal.
Populist "personality politics" could only have come to prominence due to the financial crisis, and the media's close connection with the political establishment. This allowed the media to be tarnished with the label of complicity. The superficiality of the media that gradually seeped into its culture led to its own decline, leaving it completely exposed, as the political establishment was, when the financial crisis came along. Since then, the political culture had become dominated by the rhetoric of Populism, supported by a media culture that has either lost its way, or is part of the same corrupt bargain.
As Populists generate greater "ratings", this means they get more coverage. It might make for good entertainment, but it leaves the media destroying its own integrity, to help the agenda of people who only see them as their puppets.
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