The only difference is that in the U.S. it's the media that controls the government and not the other way around. There is still a hegemony between the media an

The only difference is that in the U.S. it's the media that controls the government and not the other way around. There is still a hegemony between the media and the government, quite similar to an authoritarian one. The only time in history the media didn't control the government was Trump's presidency. Non hegemony between media and government isn't stable. Free press in democratic countries practically means control of the media over the government. There isn't a single politician who got elected without extensive media coverage. There exist very few politicians that can withstand hostile media coverage, and that hostility can be completely debased from reality and it wouldn't matter.