[stelonix]

If it were only the WaPo the ones saying things such as the comment I was replying to, then "them" would mean the WaPo. But since every corporate news outlet uses the same wording to make it seem like the CIA was "evil back in the day but it's fine now", in this context, "them" means pretty much every corporate outlet out there. Each one of them who pretends Julian Assange is not a political prisoner by orders of Washington. Each and every one of them who publish stories whose source is "unnamed officials" (aka "trust me bro") and are usually just copying verbatim the government narrative without batting an eye. Since that's all of the big ones, NYT, WaPo, Guardian, even Reuters nowadays; might as well consider "them" all of them who do this kind of propaganda.

[woodruffw]

This comes off as a screed. There’s a significant difference between media biases and state control: major news outlets in the US tend to have pro-corporate and pro-government views, but this doesn’t make them state affiliated.

Proper consumption of biased news sources requires a finer-toothed comb than “pro-government is bad, and therefore is compromised by the government.”

[skissane]

> major news outlets in the US tend to have pro-corporate and pro-government views, but this doesn’t make them state affiliated.

There’s a double standard here though - many of the same people who defend US media as “not state affiliated just because it has a pro-government bias” will then label Hungarian media “state-affiliated” when similarly it isn’t under direct state control, it is just owned by private interests with a pro-government bias.

[stelonix]

I believe it's disingenuous to pass it off as "well it's just semantics" when, in reality since the 80s neolib explosion and after the 2010s Snowden revelations, it's pretty clear the relationship between Washington and corporations/the press is as intermingled as the Chinese and their equivalents.

[numair]

This exchange is pretty funny to anyone who knows the background on the extremely cozy relationship between Katherine Graham and the CIA. It seems that, in our post-truth world, facts have become conspiracies and conspiracies have become facts. Alas.