I relentlessly started pursuing the truth and came to the conclusion that I'd been lied to about a lot of things in school and the media.
I aggressively began collecting books specifically about this media phenomenon and systematic propagation of falsehood in the twentieth century. Now that I've assessed some of these books, I would say the media in nineteenth century America was very different in a good way: it was less monopolised and ownership more distributed. Worthy of mention is a 1936 non-fiction book by Upton Sinclair entitled the 'Brass Check' that tells the sad story of how the newspapers and journalism (the media) became monopolised.
What is newsworthy and what is to be believed in as truth by the majority in America is decided by the rich and those who depend upon them for a livelihood.
The consensus of nineteenth century writers was that flat earth belief has a common history with early Christians up to the time that Islam resuscitated pagan globe earth philosophy. Nowadays, writers uncritically accept Jeffrey Burton Russell's contention that flat earth belief was rare among early Christians, and it is an unsubstantiated lie.
I've heard self professed Christians argue that Josephus never wrote that Christ was resurrected in spite of the fact that he clearly wrote exactly that in his book 'Antiquities of the Jews' and many ancient writers also quoted him as writing that. Why would someone wanting to follow Christ make such an argument against his own interest? It's because the propaganda has been successful here.
This reminds me of beautiful recent conversation I had with a 75 year Vietnam veteran (a leftist who realised at that time that the Americans were actually the bad guys) whose been a prison security guard all his life and nearing retirement. He told me most of his younger co-workers vote against their own interests. By and large, more often than not, they vote and argue for what the rich want.
I told him that compared to his generation, and even more so in comparison with the WWII, that the generation today is by comparison politically further to the right and also more stupid. He looked down kind of sad and shrugged saying "It's true."