Comment by pnf

This is largely correct. All major news outlets are information distribution platforms to reach particular demographic segments. The principal customer is not the reader but the advertiser or interest that controls the publication. It isn't necessary to be an advertiser in the traditional sense to control the news. Mostly, control is exercised by hiring the right people who are ideologically aligned with the target readership. Only management needs to receive marching orders and truly understand who they really work for. It's more accurate to think of newspapers as political party organs. This is their original function and remains so. They signal to their readership the acceptable bounds of opinion, beliefs, and facts. Even publishing the results of an election is an attempt to control discourse and to dominate the minds of the population. Gumshoe investigators aside, corporate journalists are mostly discourse police and propagandists. They are some of the lowest forms of human life. If you know one, the only reasonable feelings are contempt and pity, never admiration. Science journals are completely co-opted by interest groups and cannot be taken at face value. The only true news is sports scores.