>I find it extremely jarring how many reputable western media outlets immediately jumped to the conclusion that Russia did it
Do you have proof to back up this claim? A more correct observation is that Western media didn't blame any single entity but has the attention span of a goldfish and forgot about this incident after a week or two.
I live in Germany and my proof is that a few days after the explosions, I could read/watch Spiegel, Tagesschau and other outlets quoting speculations about Russia as "expert opinions", while discussing speculations about the US only in context of "russian accusations".
All mainstream media in Denmark has been reporting "No proof of Russian sabotage on Nordstream" this week.
They're simply going for views and readers.
The exciting story back in September was that Russia had sabotaged the pipeline.
It was then more or less established that they probably did, so now the exciting story is that they might not have!
Do you have proof to back up this claim? A more correct observation is that Western media didn't blame any single entity but has the attention span of a goldfish and forgot about this incident after a week or two.