Was an enduring opening for many a tale so I am borrowing it.

When Newsprint was the dominant media for disseminating news of the day there was a hierarchical system that gave great assurance that news was sufficiently accurate as to allow a reliance by the great unwashed.
Of course opinion, an entirely separate function was almost entirely in the hands of editors mainly by way of editorials that often reflected the views of ownership.
That system included sub-editors, proofreaders, and subject specialists who reviewed all items before printing.

With the demise of print media and associated cost cutting bringing what is published into disrepute as to accuracy, bias of the journalist produces product that is often laughable and inaccurate to a point of valueless and merely contributes further to that demise.

TV has become a main source of news dissemination along with stables of media people intent on raising a profile, essentially to enhance personal value.
Ownership has also reduced opinion from personal and owned to a submerged notion where no one person is responsible and opens the door to funding and direction such as became established with the Government sponsored “Public interest journalism fund” now known as “PIJF”.
Many flaws in that, one notable one being the ubiquitous “Ts and Cs, terms and conditions imposed upon any media signing up for the funding that effectively handed the government unbridled power over what was reported along with an undemocratic influence over what was never to be revealed.
A wet dream for the power hungry seeking an ignorant and naive public and long an essential tactic of dictators both empowered and wannabe.

Thanks be for the Internet, that has been extraordinarily successful in subverting many of those wannabes, however sadly being prevented by serious dictators eg Xi of the CCP.

That brings me to the proliferation of measures to garner control such as dis and mis-information outfits that are no more than suppression of alternative views. Thug rule another attempt to create mayhem amongst those who are led to differ after seeking further information, leading to the Classic “Conspiracy Theorists” who over time have an uncanny ability to morph into new age believers in their alternative views when eventually supported by facts previously suppressed.

This ramble was initiated by a post elsewhere yesterday where a contribution proposed a tale of a world where EVs having become the dominant means of personal transport were confronted by the discovery/creation of vehicles using internal combustion power. Longer ranges, shorter refueling times, lower infrastructure costs of fueling options, lower vehicle gross weights, simpler maintenance, increased vehicle life, much lower costs and environmentally friendlier basic raw material inputs, simpler recovery for minor repairable defects such as running out of fuel, and all the while contributing to the “Greening of the planet” by creating a valuable plant food by way of CO2 production.

That is never going to happen while the crowd madness inspired by so many in the information process prevail, is it.
So much better to perpetrate a myth the planet using coal, steel, and oil is doomed while children scrabbling for precious minerals, out of sight and mind, just like the poor little buggers cleaning chimneys of soot to maintain fires to keep their betters warm.