Historically, and for the longest time, the press had been one of the biggest and strongest tools of Freedom of Speech, one of the strongest assets that the citizens have had to keep those in power in check, ie. the government, the military, large megacorporations, and so on. Especially historically the press has always had an enormous amount of reach, as the vast majority of people read newspapers regularly and, later, watched the news on TV even more regularly, and thus the press has always had an enormous power to inform and influence the wider public.
And, as they say, with great power comes great responsibility, which is why most if not all members of the press are, at least theoretically, morally obligated to follow a widely agreed-upon set of journalistic ethics. These ethics delineate, among other things, the responsibilities of a journalist to try to seek and report the truth, to be impartial, to give everybody a fair chance of presenting their side, and to report as accurately and honestly as possible, without inserting personal biases and beliefs into the story.
After all, when these ethical codes are not followed, it can have a devastating effect. One of the first things that a totalitarian governmental regime does is to restrict and control the press, and to harness it as a propaganda machine for the regime. This serves two purposes: To control the flow of information (so that the citizens are only given the information that the regime approves of), and to feed the citizens state propaganda, influencing their knowledge and view of the world. Since at least historically the press was the only way in which the citizens got any information about what was happening in their country and elsewhere, this gave the government almost complete control over this information.
Conversely, a completely free and unrestricted press has always and traditionally been one of the biggest and strongest things keeping those in power in check, to stop them from abusing their power, and to bring to light and justice those who abuse that power. Many of the most famous political and other types of scandals were discovered and divulged to the public by the press. Without the press most of this abuse would have never seen the light of day, and the people responsible would have gotten away with their crimes and abuse of power.
One of the most important and crucial things that needs to happen in order to keep the press be this kind of tool for good is that the journalists themselves be as sociopolitically neutral, honest and open as possible. The worst possible journalist is a political activist, as such a journalist will inevitably be biased and inject his own political views into his stories. The more zealot of an activist, the more biased the stories will be, up to them being just pure political propaganda, just as if he were controlled by a totalitarian government.
And that's exactly what has happened to the press in the western world, to a very large extent and with extremely few exceptions: It has become a massive political propaganda machine. Not by being forced by any totalitarian government, but by being invaded by political activists.
You cannot trust almost anything the press says anymore, especially in certain countries (way too many countries.) Pretty much everything they write relating to sociopolitical issues will be pure propaganda. The press willingly engages in heavy self-censorship of information the activists don't want to divulge to the public, and will engage in all forms of biased reporting as well as outright fabricating stories and lying about events and facts.
It's funny, and ironic, that the press and mainstream media of several European countries is routinely ranked as having the most "freedom" in the world. Sure, technically speaking that might be true, because the government doesn't control what the press publishes. The thing is: The government doesn't do that because it doesn't need to. The press already is an obedient lapdog of the leftist government, on its own accord and will, without the government having to force or influence it in any way. The press willingly acts as a propaganda machine for the leftist government. The only reason it's considered "free" is because they slave themselves to the leftist regime willingly rather than being forced to do so.
Of course there have always been individual news companies, during the entire history of the press, that have willingly acted as political activists and propaganda machines. However, I don't think it has ever been this bad, this widespread, this pervasive, in the entire history of humanity.
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