“How does (or did) the press manage to keep control over the message? By controlling who was allowed to be the messenger.”
The story behind all the stories is the press. Their influence may be the biggest “rigging” of the system we have.
The old Soviet Union pretty much had a one party press. (There were western broadcasts and perhaps other subversive sources). The United States pretty much has a one party press also. Ours may be more powerful as they falsely claim objectivity.
There are multiple interlocking pieces. See too education and religion, in addition to the information industry and the political/legislative/court industry.
The people are decadent, in part because that is human nature, and in part because, thanks to the "popular press and education," being decadent is the cool thing to be.
-- The United States pretty much has a one party press also. Ours may be more powerful as they falsely claim objectivity. --
Even more amazing than the claim, is the pervasive meme that the press is supposed to be objective, that it has some sort of truth and honor code or something along those lines, that it travels a "high road." Hah.
I'm sure some individual practitioners honestly strive for objectivity, but those people are way outside of broad public exposure.
I don’t understand your take.
The press is far less powerful than it used to be. We used to believe Walter Cronkite was God, or at least one of his messengers.
Now we have all kinds of news stations, plus we have a strong grass roots press in the social media that we never had before.
Donald Trump is totally indebted to the mainstream press.
If they hadn’t given him a billion in free publicity, he would be back polishing the sign on Trump Towers.