The astute Soviet knew that the truth was in Pravda if they knew how to decipher the code. For example, the random article in Pravda about toothpaste supplies in Kiev, with nothing more, seemed innocuous to the casual reader. The astute reader knew that meant that Kiev has a shortage of toothpaste. An article on rail safety procedures meant there had been a bad train wreck somewhere (which was never directly reported in the USSR). So Pravda played their game of coded reporting and the people learned something approximating the truth by deciphering the code.
We don’t have that luxury. The American consumer of officially approved news is being manipulated and lied to with deliberately false information. There is no game here of telling a coded truth. It’s just blatant lies. And that’s why the official for-all-intents-and-purposes government press, and the government, hate Kim.com and Wikileaks and all the rest of the bloggers and internet sleuths. They are now the actual purveyors of something approximating the truth.
We need a new journalism school to teach our youngsters how to write in code!