Are the media "controlled" worldwide, or is my country the exception?

[Kreeshak]

I will try to narrow down a long story in order to stick on the topics question.

Yesterday the majority of the Greek media reproduced a report, that Loukas Vyntra would transfer from Panathinaikos to Olympiakos on a free transfer. Because of the rivalry of the two teams, and because the player has a tendency to errors and is of questionable footballing ability, the media were strugglying to justify the transfer. "The player never provoked the opposing fans", "Olympiakos needed a player on that particular position", "His former team will pay their ex-player compensation to play in their rivals" etc etc. They tried to manipulate the public opinion, to accept the transfer. Note that I am not getting into detail if the justification is right or wrong. Keep going.

Today the transfer never happened, the player moved to a Spanish Primera division club.

However today the best selling newpaper, which is considered the most reliable on the whole market, reproduced an official statement from Olympiakos team. The statement described in detail the reasons why the team thought the transfer should happen. The reasons were IDENTICAL to what the vast majority of the media (television, radio, internet, blogs) were reporting the whole day yesterday as personal opinion of well known producers or journalists.

But here is the catch: There was no official statement from the football team. The newspaper had made a mistake, a blunder.
What most probably happened, is that the team, released a non-paper to the media, for them to reproduce in order to manipulate public opinion. The newspaper mistakenly thought it was an official statement.

Someone might wonder - whats the big deal? But it is. Imagine a Gun industry in the USA giving the media a document to reproduce in favour of guns and how important they are for Americans. Or imagine Tobacco companies guiding the media to reproduce that smoking is so cool!

The question is, at what magnitude are the media controlled in your country? What happened to unbiased journalism? What happened to the integrity of journalism? Or is it just my corrupted country?

[Deleted]

Media is controlled everywhere the question is just about the extent.
And Greece is near the top of corruption so i guess: no

[Theodon]

Media is, for the most part, fuelled by an agenda that isn't simply reporting the news. Many news stations have political reasoning behind everything they do, so I personally consider them an extension of that society. I don't think any major ones exist that simply report the truth.

[Csnyder]

Well in the states the media loves the dems. They report whatever will make them look good and leave out the bad. The media lies here as well, when the recent shootings in conn. took place they reported an assault rifle was used, they did so to promote obama's ban on assault riffles. we later found out that he used 4 pistols and the ar-15 was in his trunk and never used in the shooting but it helped get the assault rifles banned. plus when Bush was in office they reported on the prison in cuba everyday until Obama took office and since then they havent reported on it. We still have 126 prisoners there and many have been dying because of hunger strikes and abuse by guards. The media is a tool and abuses of it will only fool the stupid in the long run. Its funny how they assume everyone will believe lies over and over, some will believe everything they hear but not all. The whole issues proves we live in a world filled with morons who will swallow any lie they see on TV. But being ignorant of the facts doesnt make them any less facts.

[Deleted]

There are obviously powerful interests at work in the media, but I don't believe it is monitored by a shady commitee or anything. One thing to note is that mainstream media dwarfs rarer and dissenting ideas in smaller forms of media, because it drives up the cost of producing them when everyone prefers the cheaper mainstream papers that give them stories they prefer to hear about. The internet is not necessarily the answer to this, as often people form cliques and clubs where they find like-minded people with opinions that chime with theirs, and nothing that questions their viewpoints.

[Kreeshak]

I suppose I should ask in topic "IS the media" instead of are. Why is it singular?