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Now for my opinion of who really controls the news - Advertisers. Consider the differences in advertisers on each network - how long will it be before more liberal companies begin to advertise on FOX to increase market share. And will FOX then bow to the demands (to change it's bias) placed upon it by those advertisers?
The media will continue to report/distort the major stories, but will still slant their reporting to "follow the money". The truth is not accorded a place in modern broadcast journalism.
From Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2003 (Front page headline)

Show of Strength

How Media Giants Are Reassembling the Old Oligarchy
Mix of Broadcast and Cable Proves Lucrative in Driving Bargains, Promoting Shows.
Playing Hardball With Barbie
Two years ago, Matell Inc. gave CBS a choice. The network had refused to broadcast the toymaker's movie "Barbie in the Nutcracker" in prime time. So Mattel threatened to pull millions of dollars of advertising from the Nickelodeon cable channel--owned by CBS parent Viacom Inc.
Viacom, which had spent a decade bulking up with acquisitions, now wielded its new clout, according to people familiar with the situation. If Mattel made good on its threat, Viacom said, it would be blacklisted from advertising on any Viacom property--a wide swath of media turf that also includes MTV, VH-1, BET, a radio broadcasting empire and even billboards. Mattel backed down, and the Barbie movie ended up running during a less-desirable daytime period.
Neither company will comment on the scrape, but Vacom says Mattel remains a "valued advertising partner." More generally, President Mel Karmazin in an interview is blunt about his company's strategy: "You find it very difficult to go to war with one piece of Viacom without going to war with all of Viacom."

This IMHO shows the power, and the danger, of centralized media. The intention if not the reality of such centralization is to moot the free will of we-the-people, convert us to sheeple to be lead as it suits our "betters."

Note, BTW, that Benito Mussolini got to be the dictator of Italy by first becoming its most influential journalist. His acquisition of power was a media event staged for the photographers, just as some of the "big protests" were staged for TV during the Vietnam era. Mussolin remained in control of Italy by becoming de facto editor-in-chief of all Italian journalism from then on . . .

So the idea that the advertisers control the PR media is questionable. In this case it looks like Barbie found herself paying protection money . . . and I think that is the general case with advertisers and journalism.