the news media has always been fine with showing blatant Israeli crimes and then gaslighting the audience because the cognitive dissonance was the whole entire point.

Oh that part I will completely agree with. My point is that even as far back ago as the Iraq War, anyone who talked good sense about geopolitics would get wild applause from the studio audience. And of course likewise for Israel, I think. Inside the media landscape is a much different beast, it is artificial in there (and that is on purpose and unlikely to change for as long as it is corporate owned, which probably will be quite a while.)