It should only be feared if:

1) You believe that the press did a good job during this unusual period.

2) You consider some of the sins of the past to be the fault of partisan press, at least in part.

Journalists of the past basically started the Spanish–American War

For sure. I wouldn’t want to go back to that specific period of journalism.

And journalism has exacerbated every single Middle Eastern or African war/armed-conflict in my lifetime.

Hence point #1; I think that the press has done a better job at pretend objectivity during my lifetime than it has at actually being objective.