To be... hmmm.. . fair?, even if this law wasn't repealled, it might have not been enough to avoid the described state of the media. I base my assumption on the media situation in France. (home bittersweet home)

Our media fairness / neutrality rules are still in effect, but the most prominent TV stations, radio stations, and journals are quite engaged in the same shitshow.

The media regulations agencies lack the means and institutional support to enforce the rules. A few billionaires possess most of the main privately owned channels, and have a strong influence on state owned media too. They use this power to further a nationalist, imperialist, supremacist, classist, racist, and sexist agenda. (Non exhaustive list. Doesn't it remind y'all of at least one other country?) The main progressive media are also very biaised, and deliberately try to counter the dominant channels. But at least those have a higher tendency to source and fact check their publication.

Most media (especially "right"-or-"center"-wing) have found way to circumvent fairness rules with lies and, how do you call it? sock puppets? Their "leftist" opponents mostly operate on media types that allow more partiality. (paper journals, internet streams, videos, and podcasts)

The authoritarian billionaires, one especially, even weaponized some parliamentary investigation process as a kind of S.L.A.P.P. against state-owned media.

Let's just say the mediatic atmosphere is tense and toxic in France too, despite existing fairness rules.