We are not talking about a massive Soviet-style censorship machine, but something much more subtle and invidious. In their acclaimed 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky introduced a propaganda model of media control . Their argument is that market forces act as filters which determine what news is fit to print . One of these filters is simply the nature of media ownership. Another major factor at work is advertising.
Most media outlets depend on advertising revenue to survive.
There is a subtle but immense pressure on any newspaper, commercial radio or TV station to conform to an advertiser-friendly medium. It not only pays to be sympathetic to business interests. It is absolutely essential. Even threatening to withdraw advertising can affect editorial content. Forty per cent admitted that advertisers had in fact influenced a story.