[dmvinson]

I think he made a logical leap based around the US political parties and wealthy elites' influence over the fourth estate - sanctioned political debates on CNN, sources of information with perceived authority such as Fox News, etc. While I also think it's explained poorly, there may be a connection here to his point about the largest advertisers (politician and large corporations) who fund the media which is meant to check them.

[cowpig]

That seems like a lot of hand-waving to me.

> this was the context for Edmund Burke’s remarks in 1787 that “There are Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.”

There's this quote early in the article about the Fourth Estate being the most powerful, and yet by the end I'm supposed to assume all these things to accept this claim that "monopoly control" of the Second Estate exists on fact-checking?

What I actually see is an article where someone started with a conclusion (that some sort of free-market/libertarianism/lassaiz-faire/whatever brand of let tech companies do whatever they want is The Way) and then spent a lot of time thinking about how to reach it.