Perhaps you are being downmodded for the off-the-cuff sounding statistic? But, your general point stands. Control of messaging is extremely powerful. One could argue that Casey achieved success decades ago E.g., the majority of Americans believed ?still do? that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 and that the US war in Iraq wasn't just an opportunistic war of aggression to serve American oligarchs. And, the majority of those misled Americans are not horrible people.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."
- William Casey, CIA Director 1981
I think the media issue can be resolved by media that is not affiliated with corporations, rich benefactors or government. E.g., MI5 used to vet BBC employees to ensure no one on the left would have any editorial influence (MI5 had veto power over hires). And, the CIA had/has journalists on their payroll at major US publications to ensure "proper" messaging. Advertisers can strongly influence what is reported e.g., an oil company threatens to cancel ad campaign if media outlet reports on their suppression of climate research. A single rich man can set the direction of a media organization-- including having their organizations spread known falsehoods in support of their personal ideologies e.g., Murdoch or Hearst.
A model that mostly[1] works is that of listener support (not the PBS model with government and corporate funding and also begging listeners for money, but rather the Pacifica model which accepts no funds from anyone but listeners.
Pacifica has a few programs that are usually quite good, like "Letters and Politics" (also available as podcasts linked from kpfa.org). They do have their share of dreck, though. And, being a bunch of lefties (the network was founded by pacifists who met while in US prison for protesting a war) they are equally critical of lefties like themselves, the mainly center-right to right "liberals"/Democrats and the far-right to extreme far-right Republicans (left right spectrum here is based on where the policies, of these groups, fit within the spectrum of world politics).
[1]Pacifica's New York station self destructed after the board was taken over by a group of listeners into all manner of woo, so Pacifica's model still has some issues.
