In Poland an anti-government song disappears from the playlist, and it's a huge scandal. In US a convicted pedophile with own pedo-island, and connections all over the elites, media and government disappears from the prison cell in a dubious suicide where all cameras stopped working and many other "coincidences" happened and not much happens about it.

In US the government is the puppet of the ruling class so there's really no need for it to do any fighting. It just does what it was told (paid) to do. And the media have almost full control over the public opinion, so there is no need for any silly black-listing censorship. All they have to do is to gently steer the attention of the public elsewhere.

i know what you're talking about tho. pretty much, this means the topic is well discussed and not subject to censorship.

A notable case was the unraveling of the whole Iraq WMD story, and especially the yellowcake affair. I suspect that this was notable precisely because well-informed Americans could see BBC et al covering it via the internet while the US media largely ignored it, though; pre-internet cases of media self-censorship would have been far less visible.

In an environment where the Guardian, Daily Mail and various other foreign papers have massive US market penetration via the internet, this sort of thing is probably way less useful; media self-censorship will only be useful for the section of the population who get their news solely from TV (or where the entire global media colludes to censor something, but that seems far less likely).

This was major news in the US in my recollection. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/what-i-didn-t-fin... is about the yellowcake.

A pro-war pundit then outed Wilson’s spouse as a CIA employee and there was a widely publicized special counsel investigation into the matter of the outing that was discussed a lot at the time.

So I don’t really understand the idea that the US media as a whole was self-censoring this...

It's a cute little "conspiracy theory" for the masses to play with, nobody in power is threatened in the slightest. In many ways it's self-neutered by turning that phrase into a mindless meme.

The soft censorship means we've seen effectively zero mainstream investigation into any of the glaringly obvious questions.

No need to censor any truth anymore, if it simply does not reach anyone because it is burried in a huge pile of garbage information, most people have not the time sorting it through.any

Discussions isn't the point though. Articles in big newspapers and TV stations, not forum chitchat.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/12/israel-white-house...

a More concrete example is "On February 8, 2018, it was reported that Qatari leaders had reassured the leaders of Jewish American organisations that Al Jazeera would not be airing its companion documentary series on the Israel lobby in the United States. According to Haaretz, the Qatari government had reportedly hired Republican Senator Ted Cruz's former aide Nicolas Muzin to open communications channels with Jewish American organisations. Earlier, the network had sent letters to several American pro-Israel organisations informing them that their employees would appear in the documentary. These letters generated speculation that the Qatari government had reneged on its earlier promise to block Al Jazeera from screening the controversial documentary which, like the earlier British series, had utilized clandestine footage and recordings of pro-Israel activists." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lobby_(TV_series)

Please, it's much older than the US. Better examples of young (and failing) democracies would be Russia and Central Asian -stan countries.

[0] https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demokracja_szlachecka

It's just that American citizens don't see a problem with partisan information or censorship as long as it is privately served.

Note that Trump is actively trying to reorient VOA to be Trump-friendly right now.

The situation with PBS is similar but a bit more complicated to tease apart. The majority of PBS's funding comes from member station dues, but it also does receive some tens of millions from the federally-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) each year, and the CPB also supports those member PBS stations. PBS and the CPB also work together on program acquisition and development.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBS

And Trump's attack on VOA is failing because VOA is protected from him by law.

https://apnews.com/afs:Content:7064410002

For those that don't like to read there's a brief animated YouTube introduction voiced by Amy Goodman of "Democracy Now!":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M

This theory, backed by enormous volumes of evidence and case studies, is very much worth a read. It explains how propaganda is instituted in the US without overt censorship.

All the major media companies are part of the state. If you think the NYTimes, Disney, CBS, etc are not part of the state, then you really haven't been paying attention.

The difference is that in some countries the state uses the government to control propaganda, in other countries the state uses the political party to control propaganda, in other countries the state uses money to control propaganda and in other countries it's a mishmash of some or all of these controls.

Also, there is a difference in level of control. Some assert total control while other have degrees of control to create an illusion of free press.

The control isn't exerted in the same way, but it is certainly there.

As an American, I suggest you try some foreign media. Unless you’re uncomfortable hearing something outside your safe space.

Got some proof of this?

> I suggest you try some foreign media

I read plenty of foreign media, I'm not nationalistic or racist like you.

Bully for you!

The comment above you are referencing is simply saying there is not the same type of media operating in US and therefore it is impossible that the same thing is happening in US. There might be other nasty stuff happening but exactly the same.

We use government officials to lobby overseas on corporation's behalf, issue new currency to make sure they stay afloat, entrust them with water, power, roads, waste management and schools. They make our war supplies, run the mercenaries for the wars, manage the state's finances through private banks and run elections. Some even have charters to manage entire cities (such as the Irvine Group).

We use state apparatuses to defend them overseas. They run the media and manage such mundane state functions as traffic citations and parking fees. Corporations are part of the state apparatus.

You could say corporations aren't part of the state apparatus because you've personally decided not to classify them as such ... but that's just playing some theatrical dictionary game, it's not real. If something runs the elections, fights the wars, manage the municipal services and finances, then they are the state, that's what the word means. Corporations are part of the unelected bureaucratic administrative state.

We have state media, we just call it "corporate media" but that's merely a rhetorical slight of hand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Bestseller_List

In 1983 (as part of a legal argument) the Times stated that the list is not mathematically objective but rather editorial content.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

One can be critical of behavior in one country and also not like the behavior of a country you also happen to reside. The linker is not the NY Times :)

Edit: And you don't have to profess the dislike of similar behavior in the same article

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Bestseller_List

In particular the first paragraph under Controversies

It's just ironic that the NYT has an article about the polish chart... that behaves just like their book chart.