Why legacy media marches in lockstep:

“USAID was funding over 6,200 journalists across 707 media outlets and 279 “media” NGOs, including nine out of ten media outlets in Ukraine.”

[Supp Feb 8]

Beware of the warped way legacy outlets are using the term “independent media.”

For full effect, follow all the links on this Wikileaks story on X:

I am aghast at recent revelations about the vast system of carrots and sticks the US government has secretly employed to control the flow of information to Americans. No bona fide media reporting on current events would have accepted this money. Or at a minimum, any media outlet accepting this aid should have been disclosing this stark conflict of interest as part of every story it publishes. To the extent that these outlets failed these two approaches, they were committing a fraud on their readers, who assume that the “news” was to some extent, an organic process.

Walter Kirn articulates sums it up: