[vintermann]

It's naive to think the government has no influence over editorial content. They may not have day to day influence, but so what, they wouldn't have had time to micromanage it even if they wanted to. Al Jazeera, TeleSUR or RT aren't micromanaged either.

No, the way to control media is to appoint a person you trust will cover the things you want to be covered, with the angle you want, and most importantly not cover the things you don't want to be covered. And this, they get to do. That's what Rupert Murdoch does too, and Jeff Bezos. None of them have to send out orders to kill a story - in the rare case their trusted appointees aren't sure, they can quickly and securely coordinate with similarly aligned media, or directly ask their patrons what they want. That's what they do for anything national security related in the US these days.