You don't need to convince 99% of people, you only need to convince about 10% or so. Something like 80% of voters will vote a straight ticket in the US and ~10% confirmed they would split their vote.

The majority are going to go for the biased media of their choice that tends to support their side. That's just basic tribalism, and it's alive and well in the US and probably the rest of the world. .

Here's a media bias chart. As it turn out, I tend to get my news from Reason (I consider myself Libertarian, so it's my biased news of choice), BBC, The Guardian, and The New York Times, and occasionally a few others on that list. I rarely read/watch anything from the left or the right, though occasionally I'll read an article or two from The Daily Mail or Huffpost. I also like my local independent journalism (seems to be left leaning; I'm in a very conservative area, so I think it balances out).

There's a lot of variety and scrutiny in the US, and I'm sure the same is true in other western countries. Yes, sometimes governments interfere when there's a big news piece they don't like, but the truth eventually comes out. I can't say the same is true for Chinese or Russian news because those governments have so much control over their media vs western countries.