In the previous insight regarding the problems with the media we said telling the truth in reporting is of foundational importance. But it also pisses people off or pisses them off before it allows them to make choices to be more free.
Primarily in the United States, and even in other democratic countries like the United Kingdom and Australia, legacy media over the decades has been continually consolidated. In the US this has happened under both political parties, one of which is mostly corporatized and the other of which is fully corporatized and each time it's consolidated it's become controlled by less and less people. And who are those certain people that become pissed off at the truth? They are the entrenched, corporate or corporatized governmental power structures, and those who support them. Now, who are at the top of large corporations that own large media companies? They are mustache twisting aristocrats, Sith lord Oligarchs, or in authoritarian countries, full-on dictators who are also oligarchs. Who, get ready for some truth, are always corrupt, because morbid wealth and extreme power, places people so far disconnected from the middle class to an insane asymmetrical level at the top of hierarchy and thus results in them thinking they are better than everyone else. Which is inherently corrupting. The comedian Duncan Trussell once told a story about how he got some highest budget free flight to the Middle East on one of their beyond first class / beyond business class tickets. The ones where you sleep in those cool pod things, the opposite of the sardine can that is coach. Then also had a private golf cart putt putt him around the airport so he didn't even have to walk the terminals and a private driver to his likely 5 star hotel included in the package. He said just after that one flight, he started to feel superior to everyone else at the airport. And this was on a public Emirates, Dubai, Qatar or airline, not even a private jet or yacht which are standard operating procedure for oligarchs.
Corruption can only exist within the shadow of lies and shrivels within the light of truth so oligarchs don't want the truth told because it would inherently cause de-corruption which they thrive within. They instead want to control the narrative because it only helps them - not the people. Concerns about large corporate ownership and its impact on editorial independence are frequently raised by those who value the journalistic oath. Because it doesn't take a genius to figure out that media outlets owned by big business are influenced by the interests of their owners, leading to self-censorship or a lack of coverage on certain issues. Traditional legacy media outlets have also very much historically played the role of gatekeepers, controlling the flow of information to the public. And as corporate consolidation increases gate keeping increases. Which limits the diversity of voices and perspectives that are heard. A journalist should fight the man, not work for the man. So the more media organizations are consolidated and thus corporatized, the more journalists employed by said media organizations have to cater to their oligarchic owners which are counter opposite to the truth. All that should matter is what's true, so if you want a simple cipher for truth, check out our L-Curve oligarchy series on something called the L-curve (findable via www.lcurve.org), which is the medieval distribution of wealth that very much persists today. It's your secret cipher code for how everything in the world really works. In the West, from the majority of corporatized, legacy media, which has mediocre at best journalistic integrity, we get a very one-sided point of view on many things. Mainly the point of view that helps the top of the hierarchy - Godzillionaire oligarchs, mega corporate interests such as the military industrial complex, the dirty dirty dirty tub girl fossil fuel industry, big agriculture, the pharmaceutical and medical insurance industries, the dark sorcery infested banking industries, and other things that want fascism instead of liberal democracy and the interests of everyday working people who are We The People.
There are plenty of decent to good wealthy folks out there. But the important differentiation here is wealth vs morbid wealth so the term "oligarchy" is a pejorative often used specifically to describe those with significant asymmetrical political influence and control over key economic sectors - one of which is always and absolutely media. Particularly when there are concerns about the concentration of power and its potential impact on democratic processes. As an example, who recently bought Twitter and renamed it to a stupid name that people refuse to even say without saying the previous better name and because their child is in a sexual identity transition and can't stand them for their un-acceptance of it has disowned them and their last name so they blame the $50,000 a year liberal arts school said child was attending and their counter solution was to buy Twitter and fill it with Neo Natzi's? An oligarch. One of the world's richest, if not the richest, who understands the importance of controlling the narrative by propagandizing the populace under the ruse of "free speech." Autocrats - communists and fascists know the importance of media ownership as Hitler and Mussolini also took over radio and newspapers during their time.
If they really cared about freedom of speech, Twitter, and any other social media network of a certain mega size, would be like a public utility, which everyone owns and within certain rules of content moderation, everyone has access to and not only that even have some public stake in - as a modern day analogue of the "public square". That would breed the best elements of transparency, honesty, and truthful free speech because it would allow for journalistic truth to thrive. With a more decentralized distribution of people co-owning it, like a co-op where the employees co-own the business. But when one source of corruption owns a media network, which is always the way with legacy and still problematic with new big social media networks, with a great deal of power and resources, that's harder for journalists to challenge, because it requires rocking the boat upward. Real journalism will speak truth to power, meaning it will be from a lower socioeconomic status, or a democratic middle-class socioeconomic status, and speak the truth against those at any level of the socioeconomic hierarchy, including and especially at the morbidly rich.