[LeoJiWoo]

To all the people who say they knew it all along. Congrats.

I didn't, and seeing it presented like this is horrifying. It really begs the questions do we even have a legitimate media, and not a mercenary media that kneels to the highest bidder.

[ajeet_dhaliwal]

I only realized quite recently that you cannot trust many of the highly ranked sites on Google. I got into contact with highly ranked sites that feature content in area of business I am involved with including having features on some competitors. I get in contact to ask them to consider looking at what we offer and see if it's something their audience would be interested in. I'm asked for a bribe immediately, sorry, an upfront fee, there's no hiding it or anything, it's brought up in the first email. Google says they don't rank paid links highly but despite what they say I know they do. It's all a load of nonsense. I didn't realize quite how bad the situation was until recently though and only because I have a business myself.

[gaius]

... and then is it really "the press" that the Founding Fathers envisaged, and if not should it be protected by the First Amendment?

[macintux]

Stop. I'm not a believer in slippery slope arguments, but given the fact that our president has chosen to do his best to undermine the media and by extension the first amendment, I'm strongly disinclined to add fuel to that fire.

The press has almost always been biased and truthy. Look at William Hearst. But it's still critical to our republic.