Isn't that the nature of any giant corporation in a capitalist society?
No. That's the nature of media these days. They're fucking addicts, and they don't care how much turmoil they start and perpetuate.
Isnt kneecapping the media the kind of shit that China and Russia do?
You can't have no media and have people live in ignorant bubbles, and you can't have a state-run media.
So what do you do?
Of course it's the kind of thing China and Russia do; but that won't stop someone from physically making it happen.
Sooner or later they are going to be bitten; but there's a way around it.
1:
License the damned journalists. If you don't have one, you can't present yourself as a journalist; and you can't be directly paid for journalism. Any article written by a licensed journalist presented as fact
must also be presented with a visible graphic identifying the author as being so licensed. Articles written by a non-licensed individual will not present that graphic, and the difference would be immediately clear to even simpletons.
This is not too much to ask, and not at all unique among industries or even amendments.
2: Require them to have two independent and verifiable sources, and then enforce it. Don't have two, and publish an article as fact anyway? You go to resort prison for one year. Do it again and you go to pound-you-in-the-ass prison for five years. A third time and you're in for life.
3: Mandate that every step of the scientific method be illustrated as practiced with every article. You have to show your work. If you can't, you don't get to publish as fact. If you don't, and/or simply publish anyway, you go to resort prison for a year.
4: Require all stories published by licensed journalists to adhere to proper grammar rules. No more misleading headlines or text, as a result. Fail to do so in a report presented as fact, and you re-write the damned thing with a notice at the top. Fail to re-write it, and you're again in prison. It's a damned easy rule to follow.
5: Create a modern law illustrating that no work identifiable as journalism, licensed or not, can be suppressed or otherwise altered by any governing body. It can even be an amendment. Let the notifications and licenses do the work.
You can still write whatever the hell you want (licensed journalists, too, so long as they don't use the graphic on a story that doesn't follow the rules), but if it's to be presented as anything more than opinion, you'd bloody-well better have a license and that graphic in tow. The press is still free, but now the bullshit is tempered.
They're more dangerous than any gun ever made, and nobody is watching the watchers. They're supposed to be honest to a fault; but they're the biggest liars by manipulation and omission ever to walk the Earth.
Cheers,
Kennith