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Comment by Regnore | Hacker News Reader

My wife is Iranian and she says that something people in Iran fail to understand about the US is that the US media is not controlled by the US government. I’ve wondered if it stems from the fact that Iran media is strictly controlled by the Iran government to the point where they are indistinguishable. I can assure you in the US this is not the case.

> Any news has a usage for whatever political agenda there is in the US administration.

If the previous administration was not sufficient proof to you that this is clearly wrong, then what proof could dissuade you?

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> US media is not controlled by the US government

This might be true, but specially about countries that don't have a media presence the main source of news about that country is white house press releases. The same goes for news about civil wars and such.

The way Syria war was reported, outside of a few good journalists who did amazing reports, was basically just standard US government play book.

The reality is journalist are lazy, and its easy to just pick up the narrative pushed by the US government and the associated standard think thanks.

Right but this is a matter of prioritization of resources more than some nefarious plot by the US government to control the US media.

It isn't controlled overtly but influence is still exerted. This was readily apparent when W shunned any organization that dared question the justification for invading Iraq. News of domestic relevance gets buried all the time by upper management who want to curry favor and stay in good graces with authorities.

>about the US is that the US media is not controlled by the US government.

There is a very infamous book, Manufacturing Consent, that explains this isn't true. Sure the president isn't calling up the CEO of CNN and telling him what to air, but when push comes to shove the media companies will all get in line.

I understand that way of thinking - my take is that Manufacturing Consent is mostly right but practically boils down to “American’s want American media organizations to have a pro-America bias”.

That fact that international media is easily accessible is a good counter-balance to this problem. In addition, you are starting to see the desires of the public changing - e.g. you much more frequently read/hear anti-American articles/opinions from the American progressive news media.

The only difference is that in the U.S. it's the media that controls the government and not the other way around. There is still a hegemony between the media and the government, quite similar to an authoritarian one.

The only time in history the media didn't control the government was Trump's presidency.

Non hegemony between media and government isn't stable. Free press in democratic countries practically means control of the media over the government.

There isn't a single politician who got elected without extensive media coverage. There exist very few politicians that can withstand hostile media coverage, and that hostility can be completely debased from reality and it wouldn't matter.

What if your belief is that “the US administration” is an inertial beaucracy that carries on regardless of who gets elected?

Obama ran on ending wars in Iraq and afghanistan, and then he got in and those options disappeared. Trump did similarly.

So what would it look like if the US had been run for decades primarily by unelected agencies, and the us media served them, not whoever happened to get elected?

> Obama ran on ending wars in Iraq and afghanistan

He mostly ran on ending Iraq, he called Afghanistan 'the good war'.

The reality is that these politicians could do far more but they just don't care enough about it.

For Trump for example the America First people in the administration were pushing that, but those people were kicked out and Trump in order to get along with the party just let them do their thing in Afganistan.

Obama was the same, in order to get out of Iraq he authorized the surge in Afghanistan.

The 'deep state' you are talking about exists, but they are supported by lots of people in congress and lobbies and the president, whatever he ran on has to negotiate with those interests to get anything done.

Just because the leash is longer does not suddenly mean there is no leash.

Actually your wife is wrong. The American media is controlled but in smart and efficient way, the average Iranian knows this well unless they're the Pro America Iranian who only represents small percentage of the Iranians (and they are seen as traitors even from many opposition parties). The funny thing, the difference between the major American media regarding Iran, is that some want to starve the people until they can make a coup, the other opinion is that Iran should be nuked tomorrow. And People has the nerve to call this "freedom of speech"

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