Without first hand, primary sources of information, the media and their dissemination of information (or lack thereof) is a form of manipulation to suite someon

Without first hand, primary sources of information, the media and their dissemination of information (or lack thereof) is a form of manipulation to suite someone's agenda, and has a lot of analogs with the truman show. For example, nobody right now, except may be the US military, knows whether it's a real spy balloon, or really just a weather balloon. But the media reporting of it has framed it as a spy balloon with high probability.