[joe_the_user]

The press has influence. The press has always had influence. In a society involving mass media, the press can't not-have influence.

We might talk about what form a society would have to have for the press to not have great influence - maybe "very strong education and civil institutions" or "directly democratic workers' councils" but if we're going have a modern capitalist society with multiple poles of elites and atomized consumers, the press, the corporations, the state and highest professional all will have disproportionate influence.

Which is to say, now, all the different press outlets manipulate, sometimes in distinct and opposite ways, sometimes in agreement with each other. And all the various economic and political institutions manipulate.

And the thing with this manipulation is it doesn't require crazy plan like the ggp/op insinuates. They don't need to intentionally create "deep fake" as vague threat, human psychology just naturally drifts that way, including the psychology of the reporters themselves. And manipulation for a specific purpose just requires the poor framing of ideas that can leveraged whenever you need it. So yeah, the press certainly manipulate but it doesn't generally have a "master plan" of manipulation. That wouldn't help (not that it hasn't been tried).

[NOGDP]

There's a long documented history of mass media manipulation, and it seems to be getting more aggressive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model

> So yeah, the press certainly manipulate but it doesn't generally have a "master plan" of manipulation.

Ah, the master plan - code name 'red herring'?