They consider independent reporting (eg YouTubers) to be the main threat, thus why we don't really see them making national headlines out of their suppression and why they even go out of their way to exclude them from their definition of press.
They're saying that a YouTuber is most often not seen as a valid journalist in the eyes of the government despite Freedom of The Press being a supposed "unalienable right". Once they've been disclaimed as a journalist ("go out of their way to exclude them from their definition of press"), suddenly they're performing espionage if they report information that someone in the government didn't want to be revealed.
Furthermore, the stifling of not just Assange or Snowden no withstanding, there has also been direct vilification of people who stand up for the first Amendment; people seem to have glossed over that James Larkin (of Backpage infamy) who commited suicide while under extreme duress for his trail is actually a newpaper owner.
He had been committed to standing up to power in a litany of documented stories, and even got settlements from them to keep operations going, it's sad, but I don't think the US mainstream news is worth anything but a coaxed form of derision, fear and a perverse 'infotainment.'
Being from SoCal in the 90s I saw how the paprazzi made everything about celebrity a cult-like mania, and car chases, I still remember the OJ case being played where cartoons once stood; in the 2000s I saw it go to chasing on reality TV and socialites and just tuned out. It's also why I saw social media for what it was: it was a eye-ball grabbing solution to fill the vacumm in order to cash in on people's need to doomscrool and engage in pointless online fighting--most of us who grew up on the internet at the time had been in enough flamewars to know what this was.
Honestly, I wish I could say I was entirely immune to it by only following a few sources and journalists, but I did follow the riots during COVID and saw the Blueleaks thing unfold and saw this captures people's attention.
Elon destroying what little credibility he has since taking over Twitter/X and desperately holding on to his cult of personality the Market may have bestowed him by taking credit for his worker's efforts with reality TV like antics (celebrity fighting?) has been amusing but his comeupance raises a valid point: there is no trusted news source since its been so monetized.
I feel that because British disinformation and Soviet/Russian propaganda tactics have been so pervasive and effective with these mediums that no one really knows what is going on at all. And that may be intended.
I'm reminded about this clip from Newswipe of Bitter Lake [0] at least every 6 months, and seeing how more relevant it becomes with every passing year.
