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Over here, it's a bit of the opposite, but also the same in some ways, where the newsmedia controls our politicians and populous (especially Fox News with the Republicans). Behind the scenes, there are almost definitely dealings between Fox News and the Republicans that isn't public. Fox News spent a significant chunk of the past 4 years denying the outcome of the 2020 election for the benefit of Trump.
It's a half/half mix of our politicians being stupid/brainwashed by the newsmedia and also corrupt. I'm sure you've seen what some of our politicians have been spewing out of their mouths.
It's a bit more complex, but essentially the same. Corporate media control politicians who in turn control the public broadcasters.
The German rough equivalent of Fox news, the Axel Springer publishing corporation, which runs the infamous Bild tabloid and multiple other media outlets, has been continuously campaigning for a reactionary cause since its founding shortly after WW2. They do set a lot of the political agenda by pretty much dictating the public discourse.
It's a few different companies over here (Fox, Sinclair [who controls basically all local media nationwide, John Oliver did a good segment on them], Newsmax, One America News, CNN, MSNBC), but same result that the media controls the Overton Window.
In 1987, America abolished the law that forced newsmedia corporations to cover the news in a specific way (which you can read about here). This has a massive negative effect on our media's news coverage. It started to become just about ratings and profit.
The German media landscape got liberalised in the 1980s, too, with private TV being legalised by a constitutional court verdict in 1981 and the first private TV station coming online in 1984. Private TV was from the start groomed by "conservative" politicians as a tool to further their agenda.
These days, the TV programme is mostly driven by market share, even the public broadcasters have jumped that bandwagon, which over time has lead to an overall decline in quality, as they are trying to emulate the private channels.
I wonder if there's a money trail that can be traced back to a single source for both the German and US (and probably others as well) media outlets to corporatize/liberalize at around the same time.
The laws here directly reflect the wishes of corporations, including the relealing of the Fairness Doctrine, and there is a money trail showing which politicians took money from who for their political campaigns.
The Heritage Foundation also played a big role in influencing policy during the Reagan administration. These are the same people who wrote Project 2025.
In Germany, there is a big political movemet that transcends pretty much all party boundaries, which calls itself "transatlanticists" its core values are subservience to the USA, or some form of transatlantic corruption.
I wouldn't be surprised about all kinds of money trails. Our future head of government "worked" for BlackRock, an US investment corporation, for the most part of his career. And there are many more like him. As I already said, most forms of political corruption are legal in Germany.