Owned Press equals Owned Reality
Reality has more in common with clay than stone, it's more like a poem than a definition. Reality is no truer than what is printed in our newspapers, transmitting across our devices, and even misinterpreted through our own ignorance. Individuals, entities, and even ideas can change how we as a people interpret the world.
The free press was tasked with maintaining a unified version of reality based on truth. Through this lens, western society was able to centralize their societal beliefs, views, and nationalism. The Fairness Doctrine (1949-1994) required that opposing views be provided on all topics of public interest and any individual or group attacked by a report was provided opportunity to respond on the same program.
Congress attempted to codify this FCC regulation twice, but both Regan and George H Bush threatened to veto it. In 2009 the Obama admin came out against reviving it as well stating, "I believe as President Reagan did, that the electronic press—and you're included in that—the press that uses air and electrons, should be and must be as free from government control as the press that uses paper and ink, Period." In 2009, the GOP controlled senate attempted to pass legislature that would prohibit the reintroduction of the Fairness Doctrine, it did not pass the House.
Keep in mind, the corporate control was never a problem for any of these administrations. Need I remind the reader, that there are ways to hold the government accountable, but there is little to no citizen control over corporations. These admins placed our news in the hands of entities completely unaccountable to the people. Entities whose sole reason for existing is to make money.
Political reasonings on both sides of the aisle for abandoning the Fairness Doctrine are Orwellian in nature, that somehow providing a regulation or law that requires opposing viewpoints will polarize the media or provide control over their reporting. This is of course, a fascist dog whistle. Fascism requires maintaining only one point of view, normalizing no longer hearing opposing viewpoints is the first step towards that end.
A Free Press is only a threat to those who wish to limit the people or hide the truth. There is nothing lost from free reporting unless you are ab individual or organization that wishes to hide their actions from others. To this end, the Free Press is one of the first things to be lost in societal collapse. The people can't learn of the collapse if those tasked with reporting on it are owned by those very people bringing about the collapse.
In late 1994 the Fairness Doctrine was struck down, in 1996 Fox News began broadcasting. It's politically biased and often angry reporting quickly found its target audience. Rather than report reality, Fox News reported what its audience wanted to watch and hear. The news had become subjective - at least on the right side of the aisle.
The first battle for America's democracy was lost as news stations were purchased by corporations that were not in search of objective truth or societal knowledge but ratings, ad revenue, and market share. With the 4th estate in shambles, with multiple versions of every event being reported, all seeped in audience-favored bias, societal reality splintered.
Politicians no longer need to be justified or hold the moral high ground; they just need to have a media mouthpiece say they are right and just. But, with all things in the USA, nothing is free, and so the politicians find themselves returning the favor of favorable reporting with favorable legislature. This tit-for-tat cycle has been going on for over 20 years. But a system under constant abuse will fall apart, we are witnessing the unraveling of societal reality every day.
This manipulation of reporting, this control over our perceived reality, has broken almost every pillar of democracy the United States Representative Republic had to offer. When those in search of power couldn't break the system because of the people, they broke the people's ability to recognize the damage being done and shattered their chances to organize against these domestic and external threats to society.
