Maybe sausage is the wrong analogy, since I love them and I find nothing wrong with the ingredients.
I'd say it is closer to a fast food meal. Yes they can be very tasty and satiating for a moment but the nutritional value is extremely low. If consumed too much it is pretty bad for you
Working in a office complex where about a dozen different news papers and sites were made, just made me realize that the "news" section is pretty much purely about relatively cheap traffic generation, nothing else. They license a bunch of wire agencies like Reuters, AP, etc. pick out and often blow up the stories that the target audience will likely click on. The site that is regularly the fastest in publishing something, will gain visitors.
So its not that there is per se something nefarious happening within any particular story, but the news feed is there to make you consume more and boost the numbers advertisement pricing is based on, not to inform you.
>Related Article from The Guardian "News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier"
The author, Rolf Dobelli may be worth checking out, though I don't 100% agree with the article.
A good approach may be to do some independent analysis with the widest variety of sources, then use that going forward.
Eg anti Russian and China bias is coming more and more to the fore these days (not saying their leaders are good, far from it) but once its characteristics are recognised it's easier to ignore and not be influenced by it.
