The criticism of the performance of newspapers goes back well before Lovelace and Babbage:
"""I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false."""
"""I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false."""
- Thomas Jefferson (not Mark Twain), 1807, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mark-twain-read-newspaper-...