In journalistic circles it is a pleasing custom to speak of the Press as a Great Power within the State. As a matter of fact its importance is immense. One cannot easily overestimate it, for the Press continues the work of education even in adult life. Generally, readers of the Press can be classified into three groups:
 
First, those who believe everything they read;
 
Second, those who no longer believe anything;
 
Third, those who critically examine what they read and form their judgments accordingly.
 
Numerically, the first group is by far the strongest, being composed of the broad masses of the people. Intellectually, it forms the simplest portion of the nation. It cannot be classified according to occupation but only into grades of intelligence.

Under this category come all those who have not been born to think for themselves or who have not learnt to do so and who, partly through incompetence and partly through ignorance, believe everything that is set before them in print. To these we must add that type of lazy individual who, although capable of thinking for himself out of sheer laziness gratefully absorbs everything that others had thought over, modestly believing this to have been thoroughly done.

The influence which the Press has on all these people is therefore enormous; for after all they constitute the broad masses of a nation. But, somehow they are not in a position or are not willing personally to sift what is being served up to them; so that their whole attitude towards daily problems is almost solely the result of extraneous influence. All this can be advantageous where public enlightenment is of a serious and truthful character, but great harm is done when scoundrels and liars take a hand at this work.

ADOLF HITLER -MEIN KAMPF

US media have been under increasing control of the Pentagon since the 1950s and the beginning of Operation Mockingbird:

Operation Mockingbird was a secret Central Intelligence Agency campaign to influence media beginning in the 1950s. Organized by Cord Meyer and Allen W. Dulles in the 1950s, it was later led by Frank Wisner after Dulles became head of CIA. The organization recruited leading American journalists into a network to help present the CIA's views, and funded some student and cultural organizations, and magazines as fronts. As it developed, it also worked to influence foreign media and political campaigns, in addition to activities by other operating units of the CIA.

Now the military control of the media is complete.  No one in the US reports news that shows the military in a bad light.  The New York Times clears its stories with the Pentagon first.  That is why they can get away with false-flag events and illegal wars based on conjured-up intelligence.  Here is a recent example of the lapdog media in the US:

The extraordinary silence of the American media on the state killing of Ibragim Todashev, a key witness in relation to the recent Boston bombings, calls the official account of the bombings even further into question.

On May 22, Todashev was shot seven times by an FBI agent inside his house in Orlando, Florida, including once in the head, under the most dubious circumstances. Todashev was an acquaintance of alleged bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. In the days following Todashev’s death, a half-dozen wildly inconsistent accounts of the killing were presented in the media before the story was dropped and buried.

The media first reported that Todashev attacked an FBI agent with a knife. After approximately a week, the “knife” story was unceremoniously abandoned without any explanation and replaced with a series of increasingly incredible accounts. (See “The state killing of Ibragim Todashev”) One account involved Todashev retrieving a “samurai sword.” Another involved a “metal pole” that “might have been a broomstick.”

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/06/11/toda-j11.html

The New York Times conveniently forgot to report that Todashev was shot seven times by the FBI, including once in the head:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/us/officer-involved-in-shooting-of-man-tied-to-tsarnaev.html?_r=0

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