One is that when ideological sources attack the referees, which is to say they attack legitimate news sources time and time again and then want to rely upon those sources to fact-check things that they care about, they learn quickly that their audience no longer trusts them.
We've seen very prominent people who've engaged in polarized communication on talk radio and cable television in the United States sow distrust in legitimate news sources, and then, when a candidate from their own party who they didn't like came along and they told their audience, “We can't trust this person because they lie all the time,” their audience said, “But you told us not to trust these sources.”
When there are no referees, it's very difficult to maintain the integrity of the game or the integrity of the—